Surveys and Service Centers... Have you heard the expression "Zell's Angels"? No, I'm not talking about Sam's biker buddies, but the four-person team that staffs Equity Office's call center in Atlanta for its 8-million square foot portfolio. (Equity initiates centralized property managers, The Atlanta Business Chronicle, Feb 6, 2004)

Equity Office's recently launched nationwide strategy, EOPlus, centralizes property management functions to provide better service. So in Atlanta, Zell's Angels operate from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., handling 250 calls a day and relaying service requests to 52 engineers. This replaces the previous system of having calls go to 44 separate property managers.

According to Don Huffman, Equity's SVP for the Atlanta region, "Instead of rushing to put out fires, property managers can focus on, among other things, partnerships with the real estate brokerage community."

Indeed, building relationships beyond surveys was the common theme among respondents to the recent Dispatch Are Your Tenants Happy? How Do You Know? (Feb 12). Rob Aldrich with BVT Management Services writes, "You need a strategy not a survey. ... You need to press the flesh to get renewals, and everyone on your team needs to take a vested interest in finding out who is going to stay and who you are going to lose."

And from across the Atlantic, Andrew Waller at Remit Consulting raises a similar theme, "How do you keep your tenants happy? You are right. Communication is the answer and there is no better example than Vicinitee, a community website run by Broadgate Estates who are based in London. There are two sides to it -- building management and tenant community..."

--Peter Pike