Issue 102

Build to Rent Return on experience!

I am often asked what’s different about build-to-rent from an operator/property manager’s perspective. And the answer is lots of things… and very few of them to do with the name. At its essence BTR is a very simple proposition from a real estate perspective: residential property, designed and held for long-term rental, institutionally owned and professionally managed. But looking at it from a real estate perspective misses the point – BTR is all about the customer perspective. We used to talk about customer service, but that also understates the change and the challenge, which is to plan and deliver a consistent experience in every aspect of the building, its design and its operation. What, though, does this mean in the real world of real buildings to manage and real residents with real issues. Well, the first thing it means is that in considering a BTR scheme don’t start with is with the building, start with the customer and the customer proposition. Who are the customers that you and your investor are trying to attract? What do you know about them? What promises are you making and what capabilities are required to deliver those promises? These must be agreed with your investor as part of the management contract, ideally before the first spade has been put in the ground of a new building. As property manager you should be involved in the specification and design of the building. If not, in our nascent industry, do you have the experience and knowledge to be sure of how the building will perform, how your team will be able to operate in the building to deliver the promises that have been made on your behalf. Ultimately, are you willing to bet your fee income on your ability to deliver these promises, a quality customer experience, consistently at a predictable cost that is acceptable to the investor? In thinking about how to design and

manage the customer experience, we must look wider than our own industry. PwC’s Global Consumer Insights Survey 2019 was explicit in saying that “delivering a superior experience will be what makes you a winner” and put forward six major areas that companies who were serious about being a winner needed to focus upon: • Fuse customer experience and employee experience. An organisation trying to improve customer experience without considering the employee experience is missing an integral part of the equation • Build communities with a purpose, figure out what employees and customers care about and communicate your shared values • Focus on “magic moments” that earn loyalty over time and create a relationship that endures. • Understand your customers based on their behaviours. When it comes to the build-to-rent sector the focus must always be on the customer, explains Dave Butler

experience and making it easier for them to accomplish that goal These are important and powerful ideas but have major impacts for any organisation, let alone a traditional property manager. Are your information systems able to capture meaningful data and extract the right information? Do your management processes align Employee Experience and Customer Experience? What relevant KPIs and recognition and reward systems do you have in place? Ultimately, without ways of understanding and measuring the customer experience, property managers in the BTR market will not know how successful we are until it’s too late and residents have told you so by moving to a competitor’s building. Only when the systems, processes and people are in place, can operators and your investors truly talk about Return on Experience as well as Return on Investment!

Dave Butler is chief

executive of the UK Apartment Association

• Treat consumers’ data with respect and deliver value in exchange for it. • Win the trip by understanding what customers are trying to

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