Like many buildings, Cromwell Place has recently evolved from a single-tenancy commercial building into a multi-tenancy environment. This prompted the landlord and tenants to review the cost and benefit of a full-time reception team.
With staffing costs rising with inflation and with relatively low footfall in the building, both London & Scottish and the existing tenants were keen to maintain the level of service but keep a firm lid on the associated costs.
As part of a long-term project to refurbish the reception area, along with a successful trial at another building in their portfolio, London & Scottish asked us to deliver a full-time digital reception service.
As with all projects, we conducted extensive interviews with the building occupiers to ensure we could deliver a full high-quality service.
As part of the process, the site survey revealed that the site required an upgrade to the current Access Control system, we were more than happy to provide, and project manage.
In parallel, we sourced the necessary hardware to the run the site in a lab-environment where we carried out our standard, extensive testing process prior to delivery.
With the on-site staff as our core clientele, we made sure to involve them extensively in all the aesthetic choice and signage locations. We arrived on-site to install the long-term temporary solution on the Friday evening, ready for testing over the weekend to ensure a smooth go-live on the Monday morning.
Thanks to the extensive planning and proactive involvement of the building occupiers, we delivered a seamless transition from manned to digital reception service.
The reaction from both staff and visitors has been fantastic. Delivery staff have commented on the ease of use, despite it being an unfamiliar system. A new voice on the other end of the phone is the only difference the tenants have noticed.
Despite the unrelated capital expenditure due to the Access Control requirements, the site will see a 50% reduction in FoH operating costs in the first 12 month, rising to 80% in the following years.
I’ve known the team at Lares Digital for over a year now and I think they’ve done a fantastic service for Averys Property Management. We manage about 40 buildings and certainly I can see this being rolled out to more blocks that we manage.
Mark Avery, Averys Property Management
