Online Tenant Services Platform
After Hurricane Sandy, the St. Denis building and it’s 300 commercial tenants in NYC’s East Village were without power and no way to get information. Studio28 built the platform in WordPress giving management an alternative way to communicate with tenants and features such as the ability to manage routine maintenance via sms.
Management wanted three things from the website:
- Provide a clear way to handle routine and emergency communications between management and tenants.
- Enable tenants to submit a maintenance request from their mobile device or desktop, with the details automatically texted to maintenance staff.
- Improve the marketability of the building by showing potential tenants that the management office is up to date because of its online presence.
What we did
Studio28 designed and developed a custom WordPress site to handle their requirements. We selected and customized a set of plugins to immediately text maintenance staff with the details of each request. We also configured tenant registration on the site to segment the building’s MailChimp list according to floor.
The Results
√ Improved building operations. The website enables tenants submit maintenance requests which are automatically texted to staff. This has helped reduce response times and track maintenance issues. It also gives the tenants a sense of comfort knowing that their needs are promptly addressed.
√ Improved communications with tenants. Since the launch, more than 200 tenants signed up to the site. This enabled building management to email or text tenants, keeping them informed of building news.
√ Marketing the building has become easier than before. Through the site, people can inquire about availability and be placed on a waitlist if nothing is available. The site has enhanced the professional image of the management office.
√ Management owns the site and its data. Our client now owns outright a functional and attractive site that meets their projected needs for at least the next three years.
√ There are no ongoing fees besides hosting and maintenance costs. Their site cost less than a third of the five year cost of a typical cloud-based subscription service.
Studio28 built us a great website without trying to sell us more than we needed.
The tenants love the site and it helps us better manage our relationship with them.
I couldn’t be happier.