What an interesting scenario. It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, what would your Facebook friends think of how you run your business if they all become your customers?
For a Strata Manager, it is equivalent to all your Facebook friends moving into the same residential complex that you manage.
As the strata manager, your Facebook friends have paid on average over $700k for an apartment in Sydney and Melbourne for the complex you manage. As a rule, on settlement when you buy your apartment, you will be notified who are the external strata managers with their phone and email contacts details.
Most strata managers request that you email or call if you have any strata issues. Lifts not working, security, cleaning, parking, pets, noise, Airbnb, Covid-19 plus so many more?
Why do we in our personal life, embrace technology communication platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp far quicker than in our professional roles?
We recently received via our Strata Alert website, a question from a Strata Manager wanting to know more about our services and their concern with embracing new technology being a smaller strata management business, handling up to 100 buildings and how Strata Alert may be off assistance moving forward. It is the most frequent question that we receive weekly from Strata Managers Australia wide.
Rather than focusing on our Strata Alert communication platform, when I called the Strata Manager I focused on her personal life and how she communicates with her family and friends.
A question is a great way to start a conversation with any potential new customer
“So where did you travel pre Covid-19?” I asked. In turns out that in 2019, the strata manager travelled to the United States with the following itinerary (in general): –
- New York – Broadway shows, Central Park, Times Square, Empire State Building etc
- Orlando – NASA tour and Disney theme parks
- Las Vegas – Shopping outlets, lots of drinking and dining plus Grand Canyon
Sounds great to me. “Do you use Facebook or Instagram and how did your friends know where you were traveling?”.
She happily replied, “Everything we ate or anywhere we stopped, I shared with all my friends on Facebook.”
I mentioned to her “Why didn’t you email or call your friends updating them about your amazing holiday?”
The following words had barely left her mouth, before the light bulb moment “Why would I email my friends when I can just post everything on Facebook for them to follow?”
What happens when all your Facebook friends become you’re customers?
Your Facebook friends have all moved into the same residential complex that you are managing. You are now their strata manager and they borrowed enormous amounts of money to buy an apartment to live in, or as an investment and managing as a Landlord.
After a few giggles and laughs, she realized that her Facebook friends as customers, would not consider emails as an efficient or transparent form of communication for so many people in a building.
- Emails offer no transparency to owners. How would any owner know what strata issues have been reported via email? Everyone wastes their time raising the same issues via email.
- Emails do not quantify responses. A strata manager must receive instructions from owners or committee members approving quotes or instructions to act. Such replies via emails create chain responses only with no quantitative calculation to fast track majority decisions.
The truth is, to have a sustainable strata management business, you need to solve the problems of the owners. How is it possible for 9 months, owners in the Sydney Opal Tower heard cracking noises and did not know who to report the issue to?
Happy to say, the Strata Manager did sign up on Strata Alert, added a building she manages and has embraced new technology meeting her owners demands. All strata issues are reported via our Strata Alert app for transparency, decisions are fast tracked with electronic voting, owners are enjoying groups and feeds creating a better community and online chats are a great way to keep any eye out for each other in your building.
What industry do you work in? What if all your Facebook friends overnight became your customers or clients. Interesting dilemma considering our zero tolerance of time wasting with poor communication in our personal lives. For whatever reason, we move like glaciers embracing new technology in our work roles seeking new and better ways to communicate.
