his year’s crop of client-service
award winners had two features in common: a demonstrated ability to exceed
corporate real estate clients’ service expectations and a profound understanding
of how those expectations are evolving. The Site
Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Awards, now in their
sixth year, recognize those organizations that not only claim to be client-focused
but can demonstrate a consistent track record of delivering more than
was expected. Several dozen service provider firms took the challenge,
most of which deserve some recognition for the commitment they bring to
client service. But seven stood in a class by themselves, and four deserve
an honorable mention (see the box on this
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page for a list of the winners).
Award submissions were evaluated according to thoroughness
of responses to questionnaire topics, clarity, ability to quantify service
results, client verification of service benefits and a contribution
to the evolving definition of client service in the context of the corporate
real estate industry.
To the latter point, the common denominator in
the winning organizations’ notion of how client service is evolving
is twofold: seamless integration between client and provider and investment
in technology on the part of the service provider to meet and surpass
service expectations in the future. Consider this excerpt from The Amend
Group’s award application – and whether your current service providers
share this definition:
“Clients will demand streamlined operations from
service providers with service offerings that are strategically aligned
with their wants and needs – all at less project cost and under tighter
schedule requirements … Clients will expect a commitment to technology
and innovation encompassing R&D budgets from their providers … New
technology applications powered by the Internet will become the core
of doing business in commercial real estate.”
CRESA Partners sees the definition evolving in
this way: “Corporate space users will move away from service provider-client
relationships to corporate infrastructure partnerships, from transaction-oriented
to solution-oriented. Corporate clients are going to be looking for
service providers with solid track records of working with both the
real estate and finance departments to positively impact their clients’
bottom lines.”
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) puts it this way: “Service
providers that cannot guarantee high quality service on six continents,
tied together by common procedures and real-time technological tools,
will not be able to compete as effectively. Seamless integration will
be an increasingly important concern not only along geographic lines
but across all real estate disciplines, as clients realize the benefits
of working with a single provider for all analytical, transactional
and management activities around the world.” But JLL adds another dimension
to the client-service definition. “Increasingly, clients are asking
service providers to take on a larger share of liability associated
with real estate activities.”
Meets the Road
Companies making the Class of 2004, as have winners
in past years, did so by delivering results that exceeded expectations,
and they do so as a matter of principle. Surpassing client expectations
is the rule – not the exception to the rule.
Under intense pressure from state and local government,
land owners and other service providers to disclose the identity of
a client, The Walker Companies refused to do so out of respect for
the client’s interest in preserving its competitive edge and avoiding
disruptions to existing operations. The client wished to remain anonymous
well into construction of a 600,000-sq.-ft. (55,740-sq.-m.) distribution
center. The land purchase agreement, legal agreements on incentives,
contracts for due diligence and the construction contract all were
entered under the client’s code name. “The ‘we’ve never done this
before’ attitude of the parties across the negotiating table did not
deter us from concluding a very successful project,” explains Raymond
Walker, president of The Walker Companies. “The identity of the client
was not revealed until eight months into facility construction.”
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Among several examples CRESA Partners cited
to illustrate its approach to client service was the case of a client
about to move into new office space when the space was damaged from
a sprinkler on the floor above. The CRESA project manager, when
informed of the problem, reacted so quickly that she arrived before
the building manager, the tenant – even the fire department. Twenty
percent of the space was damaged; carpet in the furniture-staging
area was ruined and drywall had to be replaced. The project manager
had less than six days to fix the situation. Before the end of the
same day, the project manager had reorganized the move schedule,
resolved insurance questions and notified all relevant parties that
the damage would be paid for by the tenant above the new space.
The project manager saw to it that the carpet was replaced, the
walls were repaired and painted and the furniture was salvaged such
that the tenant could move in on schedule with no evidence of the
damage of a few days previous.
In the context of industrial client service,
it’s hard to get more industrial than The Boeing Company, which
assigned McCallum Sweeney Consulting the task of locating a suitable
site for the 7E7 Dreamliner final assembly plant. Here, too, client
confidentiality was a key requirement. But more daunting was the
sheer volume of proposals coming in from all over the United States
and the “intensely data-driven” process of narrowing down the finalists.
McCallum Sweeney’s use of GIS technology and other systems helped
Boeing complete the process on schedule.
Dozens of other anecdotes were supplied by
service providers participating in Site Selection‘s annual competition,
and some of them will be explored in more depth in future issues
of Site Selection. In the meantime, the editors salute
these winning companies and all service providers committed to exceeding
client expectations.
