New research by the British Council for Offices (BCO) has revealed that whilst occupier satisfaction within the UK office industry is improving, it is not at a fast enough rate to satisfy the majority of occupiers and is calling on a rethink of the relationship between owners, managers and occupiers of the office sector.
The report which follows research published in 2002 is based on a new in-depth study between corporate occupiers within the office sector and highlights a number of shortcomings in occupier satisfaction with the way that their buildings are managed on their behalf.
During a time of increasing demand for office space and a limited supply, less than one in five (17 per cent) of the office occupiers contributing to the study rated their property management service as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. Although the customer service offering is lacking, satisfaction with the product itself is high, with two out of three occupiers happy with the quality of their office and three out of four perceiving this quality to have improved over the past 10 years.
Innovation and flexibility in the industry also rated highly with the occupiers interviewed, yet despite this, less than one in three occupiers feels that the industry understands their business needs. This clear gap between customer expectation and customer experience has led the BCO to call on the industry to develop a better understanding of occupier priorities in order to redefine the concept of building performance.
According to the BCO, one of the ways that the expectation gap can be closed is by helping owners and managers better understand what a well-performing building looks like from an occupiers’ perspective. To achieve that, the BCO proposes that the industry adopts, and actively promotes, a new BCO definition of building performance:
Building performance is the way that a building supports the occupiers’ differing aims and needs, including
- Driving quality and value
- Meeting sustainability objectives
- Providing environments that meet the needs of users, resulting in efficient and effective workplaces
This definition sets out to frame a more sophisticated approach for property owners and managers to engage with their customers, focusing upon value and quality creation, rather than simply cost-reduction. Occupiers are telling the property industry that those who understand this and are willing to respond to their fast changing needs stand to prosper in ‘the three Rs of real estate’ – revenue, retention and reputation.
Commenting on the launch of the report, Chris Richmond, chairman of the BCO Occupier Group and head of real estate, PwC, said:
“The customer is always right’ is a motto that exhorts business to give a high priority to customer satisfaction. While this may be true of many service sectors, UK office occupiers’ perceptions of real-estate suppliers continues to be one of disillusionment and frustration.
“Some landlords have already identified a need for reform, and are forging a cultural change, recognising that it is business occupiers who drive the commercial buildings they develop, and manage, and with whom they need to engage to understand ever-changing modern business practices.
“This report sets out what we at the BCO see as an important course of action to impact a step-change in the industry, but only time will tell whether this will lead to prescriptive service-level commitments in line with other sectors.”
In order to provide a pragmatic way forward, the report details a ten-point action plan to improve alignment between owners, managers and occupiers:
- Adopt the new definition of ‘building performance’
- Increase engagement on ‘quality and value’
- Create a building performance scorecard
- Define service standards
- Encourage more transparency
- Rethink role and basis of remuneration for property management
- Make it easier for valuers
- Encourage use of ‘voluntary service commitments’
- Recognise and award outstanding property management
- Promote the property-management profession and increase training
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Source: FMJ
