Category: Insight

Specialist Internet Service Provider ASK4 has formed a strategic partnership with Spike Global, the leading property management and resident engagement software provider, to help bring communities closer together.

The partnership will mean that ASK4 is able to provide its clients with market-leading property management and resident engagement technology solutions. 

Spike has a proven track record for delivering real, tangible results launching and operating property software worldwide. Spike’s resident engagement portal, Spike Living, can be white-labelled and completely tailored to the needs of each development, enabling building operators to create and manage thriving communities, where residents can form meaningful connections. Spike Living also allows residents to stay engaged with up-to-date news and events, book amenities, report maintenance issues, and even get involved with the wider local community by introducing them to local attractions and services.

Working across the residential sector, including build-to-rent, build-to-sell, purpose-built student accommodation, co-living, and later living, Spike’s solutions enable everyone within a building to benefit from the spaces they are invested in. 

Speaking of the partnership, ASK4’s Head of Marketing, Jess Glover, said:

“It is a genuine pleasure to be partnering with Spike Global. We have been impressed by both their technology and their team, and we know that their solutions will make a meaningful difference to our clients. If the last 18 months have taught us anything, it is that community matters, and fostering community within multi-tenant buildings is extremely important for the long-term wellbeing of residents.”

ASK4’s Client Relationship Director, Micha Fell, added:

“We have seen Spike’s solutions in action with a number of mutual clients and not only do they deliver a first-class experience for residents via their app, but they also enable operators to develop their ESG propositions, streamline operational processes and engage new revenue streams. All of which is extremely important in today’s market.”

Speaking for the Spike Global team, Marketing Director, Jonny Wootten, said:

“It is always great to collaborate with like-minded technology companies in the property sector and there is a wealth of common ground between Spike and ASK4. Connectivity and community engagement go hand-in-hand for today’s tenants, and we are delighted to be partnering with a specialist ISP with so much experience and expertise in the multi-tenant building sector.”

You will find the ASK4 and Spike Global team at The Student Accommodation Conference on 8^th December. Contact us to arrange a meeting to learn more.

Welcome to our Day in the Life feature, where each month we sit down with one of our clients and highlight the amazing work they are doing within the property sector. This month we’re delighted to have sat down with BHB America, who provide private office services for the residents of luxury buildings across London, New York and Miami.

What’s your name and role?

Francesca Thornton, Director USA, BHB America

Describe a typical day for you?

We spend our days fulfilling requests for the incredible residents of the buildings we look after across the world. Whether it’s travel, private yachts, artwork sourcing, party planning, restaurant reservations, or anything else, we’re always working hard to go above and beyond and make the residents’ lives that little bit easier.

What is your favourite part of the job?

My favourite part of the job is definitely when we get a seemingly impossible request from a client, but we manage to deliver on it for them.

What are your top places to visit locally?

My favourite spots in Manhattan are definitely brunch at Sadelle, Central Park for a walk, Black Fox for a coffee, Van Leeuwen for ice cream.

How does Spike make your day-to-day life easier?

Using Spike Living means that we can speak directly with residents and have all their requests in one place, which makes looking back at historic requests and tracking request fulfilment super easy. We also find the back end of the software seriously easy to use when we’re uploading new content. Being able to preview how it will look before publishing it is useful too.

Spike Living connects more than 200,00 residents with their local communities. Download the Spike Living brochure below to learn how our software can support you in your day-to-day life.

This month’s community engagement blog comes courtesy of our Customer Success Director, Andy Silvers, where he shares what we’ve learned in August and his top tips for driving engagement across your buildings and residents.

What we’ve learned in August

With the holiday season in full swing, we saw a 65% decrease in amenity and event bookings compared to July, with residents opting to make the most out of the warm weather and explore further afield. However, it was positive to see that app usage was up 200% since the beginning of the year, with forum posts remaining consistently high, underlining the role that resident apps like Spike Living are now playing in our daily lives. Furthermore, despite many people returning to their offices for the first time in well over a year, we saw a 50% increase in deliveries being processed through our platforms, showing how accustomed we’ve become to online shopping, with this trend set to continue.

Carrying on from last month, here are some more fun ways to boost engagement and encourage your residents to get to know their neighbours and your in-house team.   

Pop up Food Stands

Bring the local community to your residents. We have clients who regularly invite local restaurants and cafes onsite to provide pop up food stands offering residents a mixture of cuisine to try. This is a great way to encourage your residents to get to know their local area, and local businesses may even offer a discount to those who live in the building on future bookings.

Book Club

An oldie but goodie. Even before the pandemic hit, some of our clients had thriving book clubs where residents regularly got together over food and drink to discuss their latest read. When the pandemic hit, these turned into virtual clubs, where meet ups were held over Zoom instead.

Running Club

If you have a communal gym, what better way to increase usage than by forming a running club. Or if your residents prefer to be outside, why not provide them with some suggested running routes where they can then compete for the fastest time, encouraging some friendly competition?

Film Club

If you have screening or cinema rooms onsite, then having a film club is the perfect way to encourage neighbours to bond over their love of films. Why not choose a ‘theme of the week’ and allow you9r residents to become their very own film critics by recommending their own films to watch? We have one of our clients have over 1,000 bookings for their screening rooms last month – showing that nothing can beat being at the movies!

Baking Club

With most people confined to their homes during the pandemic, we saw many residents turn their hands to baking, with a few even leaving their baked goodies in reception for others in their buildings to enjoy. Baking clubs provide the perfect opportunity for residents to share and discuss recipes, and with Bake Off returning to our screens this month, why not create your own mini ‘bake off’ with residents competing to be crowned star baker of the month?

Film Club

If you have screening or cinema rooms onsite, then having a film club is the perfect way to encourage neighbours to bond over their love of films. Why not choose a ‘theme of the week’ and allow your residents’ to become their very own film critics by recommending their own films to watch? We had one of our clients have over 1,000 bookings for their screening rooms last month – showing that nothing can beat being at the movies!

Have your own tips for driving resident engagement or decided to implement some of our suggestions above? Then get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

We kick off the first in our series of monthly blogs focusing on community engagement, where our Customer Success team will be sharing handy tips on how to drive engagement across your buildings, your local community, and most importantly with your residents.

What we’ve learned in July

With the weather being a mixture of sunshine and showers, coupled with restrictions being lifted here in the UK, we saw demand for in-person events surge once again, with amenity and event bookings increasing 167% across our client base, compared to June. Despite restrictions being lifted, it was also great to see that residents still wanted to connect digitally as well as physically, with forum posts up 80% since the start of the year, highlighting the importance of technology in keeping residents connected.

As the world continues to re-open (and hopefully will remain that way) here are 5 fun ways to boost engagement and encourage your residents to get to know their neighbours and your in-house team.

Green Fingers Club

Several of our clients with outdoor spaces have created a residents’ gardeners club. This is a great way to get residents outdoors and for them to enjoy your facilities, not to mention the benefits for their mental health. For those who are limited on space, even providing a few planters and pots for residents to grow their own fruit or vegetables can yield wonders. Once your garden is up and running, why not host a “green thumb” contest, encouraging residents to share photos of their prized crops on your residents’ app.

Trivia Night

Trivia nights are becoming increasingly popular and are an easy and fun way to get your residents out of their apartments and interacting with each other. Turn your residents’ lounge, lobby, or rooftop garden into a hosting space, and enlist your wittiest staff member as the host for the night to reel off the most obscure and wackiest questions.

Ice Cream Social

We all scream for ice cream! Everyone loves ice cream, but you can bring it up a notch by inviting a local ice cream van or vendor to come to serve residents. As with any event you organise, don’t forget to announce it on your residents’ app and make sure to include some mouth-watering photos to entice those with a sweet tooth.

Scavenger Hunt

With the weather being slightly disappointing in July, some of our clients held scavenger hunts. This not only encourages people to get out and explore their buildings but also provides entertainment for both children and adults alike. When a resident finds a particular item, why not ask them to turn it into the reception desk to claim a prize. This gives you the chance to chat with them and get to know them a little better.

Pet Photo Contest

If your property is pet-friendly, let your residents show off their furry friends and compete for a prize. You can create categories like funniest pet pose, happiest pet, grumpiest cat, etc. Create a dedicated forum where your residents can post their entries on their residents’ app, and then select a winner for each category. This also lets like-minded neighbours get to know each other and will encourage them to plan pet playdates.

Have your own tips for driving resident engagement or decided to implement some of our suggestions above? Then get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

Guest Blog: James Dilgul, Head of Marketing at Fixflo, the UK’s leading maintenance software provider.

With residents spending more time in their properties in the past year than ever before, residents have had the opportunity to really assess the conditions they’re living in, and nice-to-haves like fast internet speed and room for a home office have unsurprisingly become need-to-haves. And when it comes to problems around the property, residents want them fixed – and fast. Nowhere has this focus on good service been more pronounced than in the Build to Rent (BTR) sector.

With most of BTR’s communal amenities being closed due to the pandemic, repairs and maintenance have taken centre stage – repairs and maintenance were referenced in almost 1 of every 5 reviews according to Homeviews’ 2021 Build to Rent report.

We look at how the way you handle repairs and maintenance impacts resident satisfaction and how to get it right.

1. Keep it simple – a vast majority of the reviews focused on the need for clear, simple ways to report issues and stay informed as to what was going on in their block. Resident apps like Spike Living and specialist repairs software such as Fixflo were popular – HomeViews’ survey found that BTR operators using Fixflo were rated higher than those who weren’t (4.5/5 to 4.2/5), with those questioned rating the ability to access and report their issue on a portal 24/7 as a key part of their resident satisfaction.
2. Speed is of the essence – unsurprisingly quick response times came up in a significant number of reviews. With more residents being at home last year, the need to respond to repairs and maintenance issues in a swift, timely manner has taken on new importance as residents spent most of their time at home; pending maintenance issues could be affecting them more than usual.
3. Satisfactory solutions – another key finding of the report was the necessity of achieving satisfactory solutions to the issues at hand. Being able to log your problem and be guaranteed a fast response falls short if the end solution is not satisfactory – residents expect effective contractors to be engaged quickly and efficiently. Again, BTR operators who used Fixflo scored well in this regard, as the software allows contractor qualifications to be verified and their services engaged automatically, while also providing basic maintenance assistance for those solutions that may not require a professional.

While all the report’s findings seem to point firmly at the need to invest in resident and maintenance software to boost resident satisfaction, Fixflo’s managing director Rajeev Nayyar recommends taking an ‘omnichannel approach’ to repairs communication as the best way forward. “The best operators are adopting an omnichannel approach to resident communications, giving them the options to communicate by online or in-person where they have on-site staff. From a resident’s perspective, ease of communication and access to relevant updates are critical, as is getting repairs resolved easily, quickly, and effectively.”

Learn how Spike Global and Fixflo have partnered to create a complete BTR resident communication solution here.

Promising an enhanced resident experience and a smarter, more efficient building operation, the new partnership between Spike Global and FixFlo will deliver a seamless property communication and maintenance management solution for BTR residents and property managers alike.

Industry-leading resident engagement and building management software provider Spike Global and specialist repairs and maintenance management software provider, Fixflo have announced an integration partnership designed to provide a complete property communication and maintenance management solution for BTR operators and property managers.

The new partnership enables residents to manage everything within the Spike Living portal, from communicating with other residents to reporting a repair, getting notified about upcoming maintenance events, and managing deliveries and visitors. Empowered by Fixflo’s innovative and multilingual repair reporting system, residents will be prompted to give all necessary details about the maintenance issue from the first instance, enabling property managers to diagnose issues accurately without the need for back-and-forth communication with residents.

Simon Bushell, Director at Fixflo, underlined the significance of delighting residents at the right moments in their customer journey and how this motivated the partnership: “While repairs are rarely welcomed by residents, they are great opportunities for building operators to impress residents with a prompt, intuitive and transparent experience. With Fixflo, residents can report a repair through their Spike Living portal anytime, anywhere, using 40+ languages. They can also be kept in the loop of how the issue progresses through their property manager’s schedule. Here at Fixflo, we are excited about this new partnership and helping building operators and property managers manage their portfolio more efficiently while enhancing the resident experience.”

Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO at Spike Global, highlighted the expected operational gains for building operators, another key driver behind the integration plan: “We are excited to be partnering with Fixflo, bringing together Spike’s leading resident engagement and building management software with Fixflo’s award-winning maintenance management solution. This will enable property managers to plan, schedule and carry out a repair much faster, whilst ensuring residents are kept up-to-date and informed at all times.”