24/7 concierge services now affordable to any property
Posted on Thu, Feb 18, 2010
Having a concierge on site is a great amenity to offer to your residents. Having a dedicated person that can assist residents with their transportation, entertainment, cleaning, dining and various other needs, is surely going to be appreciated. A residential concierge can lead to more satisfied clients. A concierge also means you can rest assured that a member of your onsite staff is dedicated to the happiness of your residents. Since they have no leasing responsibilities, a Concierge or Resident Service Manager can spend their time organizing community events (movie night, parties, etc), a real asset when trying to create a thriving community. 
However, only a fraction of the residential properties can afford to employ a full time, professional concierge. For the rest of us, the right online strategy can provide almost the same benefits at a fraction of the cost. Take a look at your Resident Portal, it can (and should) offer many of the services a traditional concierge offers. In terms of entertainment, it should include a database of local events with the option to purchase tickets, list movie show times, transportation reservations, recommendations for service providers and more. You can even provide your residents with a one click table reservation in restaurants around the city using online tools like OpenTable. All the information is available on the web, all you need to do is aggregate and display it in an organized manner and there is no better place for it than the Resident Portal. From a resident perspective, what's a better place to look for a babysitter than the apartment or condo site where they can get recommendations from people they know and trust?
For many people, using a virtual (e.g. online) concierge makes more sense than talking to a real one. Consumers are so used to doing many things online now. They find online services to be much faster and convenient to their schedules. Think about the last time you booked an Airline ticket. Did you call a travel agent or go online?
A virtual concierge can provide benefits even for residents that do not use the Internet. Should the resident call the on-site team for help, they can quickly logon and book a car to the airport or a table in a restaurant using the portal. Now what might have taken a leasing agent a ½ day to get to can be done in 3 seconds with real time response.
In terms of community building, a good resident portal can help tremendously. Using tools like an online message board, personal resident profiles, community calendar, and survey builder, you can encourage residents to get together and form social groups based on mutual interest almost with no effort. In many cases all you'll need to do is provide those tools to your residents and they'll do the rest. Don't believe it? At ActiveBuilding, we see it happen on a daily basis.