If you are in the business of leasing commercial real estate, you will know that it takes many people and teams working seamlessly together to give your customers the best possible tenant experience.
The last thing you want is information silos getting in the way of what would otherwise be an incredible commercial real estate operation.
What Are Information Silos?
Information silos exist when information is not shared freely between people and across departments involved in a task or project.
They are common in all industries, with a study revealing that an estimated 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional. This prevents a holistic view of the project and its progress, and makes it difficult to consider how all the components work together and act strategically on all the information received.
How Information Silos Form In Commercial Real Estate
Typically, information silos occur in commercial real estate when a party, such as a service provider, has to fix something in the property that was reported by a tenant, and doesn't share it with others to avoid being blamed for the error of it. They would rather not involve more people than absolutely necessary, or they will try and fix the issue themselves without enabling anyone else to learn about it.
Tenants might think that, because the responsible party has been alerted to the issue, everyone involved in leasing the property is aware of it too. So, they don’t speak up or follow up on the issue. As a result, the issue may go unreported to the property manager and, in turn, the root causes might go unresolved.
Essentially, as the issue is blocked from moving up the chain, this prevents the managers from staying up to date on all issues relating to the properties they are responsible for. When this happens, it is impossible to improve service levels and provide the best possible tenant experience.
Having no clear tracking of past events also creates hurdles when new property managers join or when problems recur. It leaves managers under-informed and unable to ensure tenants are happy. Moreover, it also makes it difficult for everyone to work together to fix problems as and when they happen.
The Effects Of Information Silos In Commercial Tenant Retentions
Strategic decisions require a holistic view of what is happening in all areas of all the leased commercial property. Information silos make this incredibly difficult, if not impossible. They ultimately prevent the organisation from having all the information it needs to provide tenants with an optimal tenant experience.
Tenants will see that issues they observe either do not get resolved or reoccur, which will impact their experience with the property. And when your tenants are not happy, they are more likely to take their business elsewhere. In this way, information silos can increase tenant turnover and have a direct impact on your bottom line.
Final Thoughts
If you don't emphasise strong communication in all fronts of your commercial real estate business, then information silos can emerge. They make it difficult for everyone to work together to provide commercial tenants with a rewarding, memorable experience.
To tackle this risk, commercial real estate providers are implementing tenant involvement platforms that allow for complete transparency in their operations. With these platforms, tenants can report problems so that property owners, operators and service providers can all be aware of the issues and work together to resolve them. Best platforms also enable relevant parties to conduct property related audits, manage other requests (e.g. key orders) and send tenant newsletters from the same view.
If your organisation is looking for a 360° tenant experience tool to involve all employees, service providers and tenants to improve the quality of your operations, have a look at our 30-day free trial:
We are building the world's first operational involvement platform. Our mission is to make the process of finding, sharing, fixing and learning from issues and observations as easy as thinking about them and as rewarding as being remembered for them.
By doing this, we are making work more meaningful for all parties involved.
More information at falcony.io.
