Great ideas that don't work (Part II): We also need a tenant app

Stefan Zanetti, Founder of Allthings:

What is the purpose of this series? Do people understand it when you talk about ideas that don't work? Is it even allowed in the German-speaking world to talk about things that don't work? Was the problem with the idea or was it just the implementation that was bad?

After my last article, I was approached several times with questions like these. And exactly this kind of discussion is the goal of this series, so here are some answers. First of all: Success is nice, but when you scroll through countless success messages on LinkedIn, it quickly starts to feel boring and mostly even trivial, doesn't it? Second: Sometimes irritation is the best way to learn. Third: We are all voyeurists. Fourth: I'm not talking about mistakes - and certainly not only about my own. It is the experiences you make along the way with others that help you to draw conclusions and take you to the next level. And that is where we all want to go.

That's why today we are looking at part of two of the 'Great ideas that don't work' series: We also need a tenant app.

We, too, have always been convinced that the tenant app as a front-end is the ultimate solution. After all, a modern tenant application offers by far the most extensive possibilities for bundling various services for the tenant - who is the most valuable player in the real estate industry - and also for designing these services differently for each user unit. This works particularly well in new developments, where tenants are open-minded about new things and are in touch with us least once from the very beginning.

In a portfolio context, however, you will learn that traditional means of communication will continue to be used - especially email and phone calls, sometimes web forms. Other sectors have had the same experience, for example banks with e-banking or insurance companies with their portals. Or did we ever hear of a provider who, within a very short time, was able to serve all customers via a single portal? At least for a while, these communication channels co-exist.

In reality, however, this is a challenge, because suddenly you find yourself in a situation where things have not become simpler, but in fact more complicated. To place a tenant app on top of other communication channels is therefore a sure recipe for generating too minimal an effect.

So which approaches can be taken? In the traditional business world, there is no way around omnichannel capability. A modern tenant communication and service platform must be able to process all the main channels - both inbound and outbound. First of all, it should not matter whether tenants still communicate by phone, email, web form or chats. It is crucial that all messages are consolidated in a communication center and from there are sent out again via the channels preferred by the tenant. And, of course, the traditional outbound communication channels are then used again as a means to get more and more tenants onto the tenant app.

That's why we have long since converted the Allthings platform into an omnichannel capable communication and service platform. The focus then shifts from registration and usage rates on the application towards 100% coverage of all tenant interactions. This also increases the benefits in one go: complete transparency at the tenant interface; much higher tenant satisfaction because nothing is lost through multiple communication channels; comprehensive leverage for subsequent efficiency measures through end2end processing, etc.

This applies to existing buildings- in new developments one can take a more radical approach. But we will talk more about this in another article.