Whilst my days of serving tables in the Harvester in my teens are long gone, I have never forgotten the basics of hospitality.
In fact, if I was Prime Minister for the day, I would conscript everyone to work in hospitality when they are young. Thrown in the deep end, dealing with customers (both good and bad), and yes, sometimes being humbled by your mistakes, is by far the best education any young person can have.
The skillsets you learn from the hospitality industry are transferrable regardless of what industry your career ends up in, and I believe you can tell when someone worked in a shop, hotel or restaurant, and those who have no idea what it’s like being on the front line.
Real estate agency by its very nature is a very customer service based industry. You have to juggle the needs of your Landlords and applicants, both through the marketing stages and the stresses of the legal processes. Quite often the service you provide continues post completion too.
Because of this, it is understandable that a tenant feels they should rightly be treated as customers throughout the lease, and not just when they are being wooed to take a property by the agents.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t always been how the Commercial Real Estate market has felt to office tenants renting offices. Historically, there has been a divide between tenants and their landlords which splintered the market, thrown into focus by the serviced office (or flex) market which marketed themselves as the alternative to Landlords stuck in the past.
Forward thinking landlords listened, taking the best bits about serviced offices creating a new market which is hospitality-focused, and fully engaged in providing a high quality experience for their tenant-customers and the staff who work for them. This includes providing best in class amenities within their buildings, but quite frankly it goes beyond physical and aesthetic attributes of a building, and also includes providing a friendly and welcoming relationship with their tenants, akin to what you might find in a hotel. This is not to say that the customer is “always right”, but more that the customer “feels heard” and that both parties are working together to resolve a matter rather than being at each other’s throats.
Results for those Landlords embracing this new mindset – speak for themselves. Asset owners inspired by hotel level hospitality are filling buildings far quicker than their peers, and achieving enviable rents which leave other Landlords stumped of why they can’t compete.
The reality is, you can’t just copy what your counterparts are doing, by throwing in a few gimmicks, and expect the same results, without providing the basics of hospitality
To bastardise David Ogilvy’s famous quote “the customer is not a moron” and they will see through false hospitality.
Reputation also plays a far greater role in the world of Commercial Real Estate than Landlords could imagine. Believe it or not, we often receive feedback about a Landlords’ reputation (both good and bad) and whether Landlords like it or not, it takes time to curate and build their image. This should start from their current tenants, not companies they’re looking to attract, as it’s those already in the portfolio who feedback the horror stories.
