HTML5 is to mobile applications what Jackson 5 was to Motown – pretty jazzy. Web applications have been written in HTML or derivatives of HTML for years now, but HTML5 is busting onto the scene as the latest and greatest in development standards.

What’s so great about it?  Its enhancements allow web applications to look, act and behave more like a native application than ever before. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but don’t Blame it on the Brogie: we recently spoke with MobilityCIO’s Matt Brogie to get the breakdown of why HTML5 matters to CRE professionals.

First, wipe that quizzical look off your face. Here’s an easy explanation of web-based vs. native applications for mobile devices:

A native-application, or onboard application, is an application created for a specific mobile device and then downloaded to that device. It runs on that device whether or not you have internet connectivity.

A web-based application, or browser-based application, is exactly like a web application you would use on your desktop computer. It runs somewhere in the cloud and can be accessed from any internet connected device – iPhone, Android, Blackberry, tablet, you name it.

And now, from the wisdom of Matt Brogie, here are HTML5’s Four Major Mobile Advances for CRE:

1. CSS Styling

HTML5 has better styling than a Beverly Hills salon. HTML5 helps to standardize the user interface across multiple devices. Whether you’re on an iPhone, Android or Blackberry, you can use an HTML5 based application that functions identically across all of those platforms. HTML5 homogenizes the experience across all the devices, creating a unprecedented standard for user interface.

What does this mean for your team? There are fewer training and adoption issues for web-based applications on mobile devices. Now how to get HTML5 for puppies…

2. Onboard Storage

Nice for a flight, nice for a mobile device. HTML5 gives you the ability to have data stored locally on your device through the browser. If you lose your internet or network connection from your phone, the application isn’t just dead in the water.

Up until HTML5, there was no way for a web application to store information locally on the mobile device. Now with HTML5, you can store data locally so when you do have an internet connection, you have access to whatever is on the back end. You can pull information for service calls, for example, and store it locally on your phone or tablet. Thus, if you lose your internet connection, you can still process against that locally stored data and the application lives on!

3. GEO Location Support- “The Machine Knows”

You know that scene from The Office where Michael follows the GPS directions into a lake? Well, in most cases, GPS’s help you keep your head above water. GEO location support gives the web-based application access to location components and other tools on your phone – such as storage or a GPS reader.

Imagine a worker standing 30 feet from a piece of equipment that is three months overdue for its service. With access to GPS, the worker’s phone and application is aware of its surroundings and can beep, text and text-to-speech until its owner is too. Now you can finally know where you stand!

4. Extended Video and Audio Support

No one wants to rely on a third party when they don’t have to, and the same is true for streaming video and audio. Extended video and audio support without third party components is emerging very quickly in the HTML5 standard.

For a property management organization, this means that training videos, for example, can stream down to people’s phones through a basic web application. Send or watch a video of instructions for performing service on a complex piece of equipment without worrying what kind of phone the viewer is using.

In sum, the advances HTML5 gives to web-based applications brings them to a level where the experience is as good as a native application.  When you take all the other benefits of web-based applications and pile it together, it exceeds the need for native applications. Decision Makers take note: because of the advances in HTML, web-based applications will likely overtake native applications, like Jackson 5 and the charts.

Watch Matt Brogie discuss more mobile trends and forecasts in this clip from our recent webinar, Building Operations in Your Pocket:

The Future of Mobile (8:11)

There is an endless limit (oxymoron?) to the specific mobile capabilities that you can bring into the building management space. However, you can’t just drop a piece of technology into someones hands, say: “faster, better!” and expect optimal results. A better approach is to consider the role perspectives and how mobility can solve your problems based on the business need and the business function.

The goal of a mobile strategy is to make teams and workers more efficient and effective with their operations, but before you start yelling Kanye’s “Stronger” lyrics at your team, think about how mobility will specifically impact the different areas of business operations.

Here are the four places mobile solutions can help improve operations:

1. Tenant Management

A property manager walking the floor may need to answer questions that come to him from a tenant. Instead of having to make a phone call or go back to the office to respond to the tenant, he can go right into his tenant management system from a tablet based application that he carries around with him. Mobile device in hand, he can answer questions about lease details, work orders, building schedules, etc. without having to get back to the tenant later on.

This provides a higher level of service to the tenant and fewer “tied fingers” for the property manager. It leaves an impression on the tenant that management knows what’s going on and has their finger on the pulse (or at least the touch screen).

2. Incident Tracking

The property manager is out on the floor again when there is a slip and fall in the lobby (darn that stylish slipper-mop combination footware!). The property manager can get that recorded and documented in real time using mobile technology. He can also notify the necessary people for that particular incident. The ability to document critical information and notify others wirelessly and through mobile applications enhances the process for addressing the issue and getting resolution quickly.

3. Service Request & Maintenance Management

One of the key areas where you will see the most dollar savings is in service request and maintenance management. Now there is a maintenance worker out on the floor. She can get notified of new emergency situations requiring immediate attention as they come up or get a continuous listing of maintenance service items that need to be completed.

The associated paperwork that comes with service and maintenance records can be completed on a mobile application, reducing the amount of time she needs to spend sitting at a desk at the end of the day, completing forms. In turn, she now can reduce her amount of overtime and sign up for that after-work Jazzercize class she’s been eyeing.

4. Work Distribution

A few years ago, it was very common for maintenance workers to have to walk up to a central location and go to a printer or fax machine to pick up service tickets. Once they picked up that service ticket, they would go to manage whatever needed to be managed about that ticket.

Now, when they’re mobile-enabled, the work can be electronically sent to them, at which point they can decide if they are too busy and reassign the task to someone else or bump it back up to a supervisor to reassign. This allows for work to be put into the hands of someone who can quickly get that work done. As response time decreases and efficiency increases, it helps building management organizations comply with service level agreements that they may have in place on a lease.

See what a mobile strategy can mean for your real estate organization in Building Engines’ free, On-Demand Webinar: Building Operations in Your Pocket.

Date: Wednesday, February 29 at 12:00pm EST

Presenters: Matt Brogie, Owner of Mobility CIO  •  Tim Curran, CEO of Vela Systems  •  Lisa Panzenhazen, Medical Leasing & Property Manager of Kirco

Building Operations in Your Pocket

Must-have mobile strategies for modern real estate organizations

Mobility has become an essential component of efficient building operations. Real estate organizations that provide property managers and field personnel with mobile access to applications and wireless data are more productive, deliver better customer service, schedule more timely maintenance, and respond more nimbly to changes in their operating environment. Learn more.

In this free webinar for senior management and operations executives, our panelists will share how to utilize mobile technologies to:

• Alleviate key business pressures: reduce costs, maximize worker efficiency, and increase the longevity of capital assets
• Improve tenant service by proactively monitoring tenant needs and addressing them quickly through mobile technology
• Maximize Productivity

In the property management and building operations space, management is expected to be out there with tenants- not tied to their desk- answering questions and solving problems in real time.

-Matt Brogie, Owner of Mobility CIO

525,600 minutes,

525,000 moments so dear.

525,600 minutes

How do you measure, measure your response time?

Unfortunately, few will appreciate it if you try to measure response time in love. Like most people, the higher ups, prospects, and tenants like to hear numbers – real numbers. This makes maintaining accurate response time metrics is a high priority for most property managers.

Let’s take minute to think about this. Are you certain your data is truly representative of what is happening in the field? Unless your engineers are updating their work orders at the time of their work, there is a good chance your data is not as accurate as it could be.

Turkey's red flag

In order for a response time report to be truly representative of what is happening in the field, the engineer overseeing the work order needs to be updating it in close proximity to their actions. Unfortunately, teleportation still hasn’t been invented [NASA, what have you been up too??] and in the real world, property managers frequently bear witness to a complex work order progressing from new to complete in a matter of minutes. This should raise a flag redder than Turkey’s.

This all too common scenario is typical of an engineer who has waited to update their work orders until the end of the day. In all reality, unless you’ve provided your engineer with a viable way to stay on top of their workload, and maintain accurate times for their work, can you really blame them?

This is where the mobile application comes into play. If your engineers currently have smartphones, then there is little barrier to spot on metrics. Recent advancements in smartphone application technology have given engineers the ability to regularly update work orders, see the latest comments, and receive new work orders, all in real time. This enables not only productivity**, but also quick work order turnaround and accurate metrics.

So forget Rent’s “in daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,” measure in real time – with mobile!

**So long as users resist Words With Friends

Like Rent references? There’s more where that came from: Echo-Boomers’ Booming Impact on Rental

Would you listen to property management professionals who could boast over 90% occupancy in their buildings? We would and we did and we’re here to share our results!

We surveyed top performers in property & tenant management for their general beliefs, current processes and opinions of best practices around service responsiveness. What we found might surprise you!

It was no surprise that the vast majority of top performers consider tenant service and responsiveness a market differentiator – 92% agreed with that statement. Service responsiveness is not only critical to tenant retention and attraction, but also to protection against litigation. A fast response time means fast advice, fast action and fast damage mitigation. You know it’s important, so how do you now improve it?

From our compilation report and inspection of top performers, here are eight best practices demonstrated by the best-in-class buildings:

Get the full Service Responsiveness Benchmark Report for free with industry standards and best practices!

You may also be interested in:

Retaining with Responsiveness, Be Our Guest

Here’s a Resolution: Improve Responsiveness to Tenant Requests

How to Rock Occupancy with Technology

Ever taken advice from a candlestick? Odds are, your service can’t hold a candle to that of Beauty and The Beast’s Lumière. Afterall, how often do you urge tenants, “put our service to the test!”

That is the one major, elastic characteristic tenants consider when looking for a space: exceptional service. My advice for keeping tenants in your building is to leverage the factors you can control: service response time and quality.

You don’t need to sing and dance for tenants à la Lumière, but you do need to respond to their service requests. Here’s how to maximize the process:

Insights from industry expert Patrick Braswell:

Video (2:08): Improving Responsiveness to Tenant Requests

Presented by Patrick Braswell, Tenant Representation Specialist

-

-

-

Want more? Read Improving Responsiveness to Tenant Requests. If that doesn’t work, try the gray stuff – it’s delicious.

Visit our website for more information on tenant retention strategies, managing  service response times or bringing your program online.

I recently discovered an interesting new insurance product for the small owner Multi-family market that allows private landlords in the U.S. rent default insurance. It may be hard to understand the excitement behind this new offering, so let me paint a picture for you:

Three kids in college, the economy, a mid-life crisis car, digital cable (with HBO added on, of course), utilities, holidays, etc. The list is extensive! It’s going to be a tough year to go to the lake house. Gah, the lake house! There’s another expense to add to the list. Wait a minute… the lake house. We don’t need to go to the lake house, but someone else could! There has to be someone out there willing to rent my second home. Here I go, time to find a tenant…”

This thought process could be the catalyst to someone’s shift from owning a second home to owning a residential investment property. Great idea – renting out one’s investment property can yield rental income of potentially great value to the owner. So, say our protagonist from the beginning is named Jim. Jim finds someone he thinks will be a suitable tenant for his lake house property. Sure, this guy looks a bit sketchy, wears a dirty white undershirt covered in Doritos, and doesn’t seem to bath often, but Jim needs the money and the lake house has been more of a fund-guzzler than a leisurely retreat for his family. This tenant will do.

Things are going well with Jim and his rental property, until after a few months, Jim’s tenant stops paying rent. As the residential landlord, Jim is now losing his much-appreciated monthly income. There’s no money coming in and money still going out for ongoing property expenses. Essentially, this is turning into a severe financial problem for Jim. What is Jim going to do? Putting aside the more illegal, painful, and/or mob-affiliated options, Jim turns to Aon Affinity and their rent default insurance.

Through a group effort with ARS and GRIP Solutions Advisory carrier partner QBE Insurance Group, Aon Affinity has created  Aon Rent Protect insurance so that landlords, like Jim, don’t have to worry about financial terrors resulting from deadbeat tenants. Rent Protect was designed to reimburse up to six months of lost rent which puts Rent Protect in a league of its own in the U.S. when it comes to protecting individual landlords against rent default.

And hey, don’t feel bad about the premium subscription to HBO. We all know how hard it is to crack a severe addiction to Entourage.

It’s a new year and new you – with the same needs to enhance operations and customer service. As we shelf 2011 and delve into 2012, here’s a look back at our most popular educational content and resources from the past year.

The top topics enjoyed by your peers:

Checklist: Implementing a Successful Emergency Response Plan

How ready are you for an emergency? How do you track and document incidents? What sort of emergency preparedness training do your employees have? When was the last time you practiced a tabletop exercise? Time to assess your readiness?

-

-

Webinar Executive Summary: From an Owner & Investor- Metrics That Matter

Senior Real Estate Investor, Timothy Donahoe shares his perspective on identifying key areas for metrics and visibility to mitigate risk and enhance investor returns. Watch the full webinar or just the highlights of Donahoe’s insights into quantifiable operational performance metrics. Take measures to measure!

CRE Quick Take: Proving Your Value to Your Manager, Owners, Clients… and Yourself!

This article shows you how to keep all your balls in the air AND prove your value to the owner, interested in the highest return from the property, and your tenants, interested in the best service and value for their money.

-

Building Engines Kit: Tenant Retention

Is your tenant retention program building loyalty and increasing retention? Does it accurately document tenant meetings, service requests and other important state-of-the-tenant information:? Download the Building Engines Tenant Retention Kit and start assessing your level of tenant service today!

-

Get ready for the year to come!

Register free for the 2012 Real Estate Operations Masters Series and receive automatic registration for webinars, on-demand content, and best practices on a variety of operations topics.

It’s four days into the new year. Maybe you’ve already made  your resolutions, maybe you’ve already broken them, maybe the only resolution you care about is measured in pixels. Regardless, here’s one for business-sakes it would pay to heed: Improving responsiveness to tenant requests.

Here’s why:

Tenant Service is Elastic.

Service response time plays a key role in determining the involvement tenants have with a building manager. Longer waits and slower responses lead to an overall negative experience and vice versa. Being the most controllable aspect of any building, the speed of service with which a building manager can successfully complete required tasks, could make or break a tenant relationship.

This stems directly from two things. First, the rate at which an owner must charge a tenant more or less cannot be changed. Second, the location of the building will not change no matter how much you may want it to. This leaves one major, elastic characteristic tenants consider when looking for space to rent: the service provided.

Why do Tenants Choose to Stay?

Here’s How:

Be Effective, B-E- Effective (Automate)

Service must be provided efficiently and effectively. One of the major issues today with responsiveness falls back to the owner. Whether the tenant cannot get in touch with the building manager, or the building manager has not made available an effective means of solving issues, the tenant rarely is the one at fault. See if your company is putting its best face forward with effective customer service.

Allowing tenants the ability to submit work orders easily only quickens the response time. Automation, therefore, becomes crucial. Implementing a system where tenants have the ability to electronically submit service requests allows them to save time, which subsequently leads to a better experience.

Don’t Just Have a System, Use It!

Many things can be fixed quickly, and consequently should. Requiring someone to call the maintenance office every time a light bulb goes out never proves to be an efficient way of handling a situation. Automation is great, but it does not work if no one knows about it. Tenants need to be informed about the utilities they have access to in order to make the most of them. Simply having an online system is not enough if no one uses it. In order to effectively and efficiently vanquish service requests, the tools available to tenants must be used.

Find Out How Your Service Stacks Up

Know where your service level stands compared to that of your peers and industry top performers. What are other property owners and managers offering that you could adopt? What response times and service performance are standard? Take Building Engines Service Responsiveness Benchmark Survey for a compilation report identifying Best Practices you may want to consider.

Want more? Read about How to Rock Occupancy with Technology!

“The best way to spread holiday cheer is singing loud for all to hear” ~Buddy the Elf

Since Thanksgiving the airwaves have been filled with the usual archaic holiday tunes. To switch up the routine a bit, Building Engines’ presents a Holiday Playlist you can relate to! For your listening pleasure, we’ve assembled our favorite property management classics for the most wonderful time of the year!