Commerce + Communities Today continues its coverage of what worked in 2021 so marketplaces pros can march confidently into 2022. Here’s Part 7.

MORE OF WHAT WORKED IN 2021:
Tech in Retailers’ Real Estate Decisions
Reimagining Existing Spaces
Portfolio Optimization
Sustainability in Development
Selling Fresh Food at Economy of Scale
Reinventing and Reinvesting
Focusing on the Customer Experience

Customer Relationship Management

Businesses of all types use platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce and Zendesk to manage customer relationships. Phillips Edison & Co., meanwhile, built its own customer relationship management platform, called CenTeComm, to better meet the needs of its tenants and employees. And last year, PECO’s tech team optimized the software and introduced user-friendly features, said PECO director of customer experience Katelyn Wloszek.

PECO — which focuses on grocery-anchored, neighborhood shopping centers — was looking for a way to improve communications with its tenants. Wloszek cited as an example of the need the fact that retailers sometimes would struggle to know who to contact for different issues. In addition, they had to remember too many logins and passwords for the growing number of industry apps that were becoming part of their jobs. Now, they can access multiple apps via a single login.

“We wanted to create a single place for any communication our neighbors needed to have with us, as well as all the resources they needed to run their businesses efficiently,” Wloszek said. PECO refers to its tenants as “neighbors.” “Now we have this one-stop-shop, and it is extremely convenient.”

When tenants want to report a roof leak or a pothole, they log into CenTeComm. “We have a great help desk — we call it Requests — where they just pick a category and are then routed to the correct place,” Wloszek said. “We also have a turnaround-time standard that ensures a prompt reply.”

PECO’s tenants also use the platform to submit their sales, as required in their leases, and to pay rent and utilities. “We can send reminders: ‘Hey, it is time to submit your sales. Click here and it is done,’” Wloszek noted. Retailers also can pull copies of their leases in seconds, rather than reaching out to the landlord’s corporate office. “They shouldn’t have to go through a phone tree, get passed around a few times and then have their identity verified just to get that copy of the lease,” Wloszek said. “Now it’s all upfront.”

CenTeComm is also an efficient way for PECO to communicate with multiple retailers at once. “We can let them know when the roof is getting replaced or water is being shut off at the property,” Wloszek explained. “If we have an urgent situation like an extreme weather event, we even have an emergency SMS alert.”

The system hit its stride in 2021 thanks in part to PECO’s rollout of additional updates and enhancements, according to Wloszek. “Our user adoption has accelerated, and the efficiencies we have created have led to unexpected financial savings.” In a 2021 survey, 90% of PECO tenants expressed satisfaction with the system. “We are seeing efficiencies with our sales collections and handling requests from our neighbors through the platform,” Wloszek noted. “When we started, we never could have imagined that CenTeComm would have such a strong influence on our customer satisfaction and how we do business. It has made a tremendous impact.”

Lease renewals form one measure of those relationships. During an earnings call on Nov. 5, president Devin Murphy noted that the company’s third-quarter retention rate, 91.2%, compared favorably with its year-to-date retention of 88.3% and with its 2017-to-2020 average of 87%. “These solid retention rates are evidence that our retail space is a great place for our neighbors to successfully operate their businesses,” Murphy said.

PECO already aggregates and analyzes CenTeComm data to track its progress on response times, roof leaks and the like, and moving forward, Wloszek aims to expand those capabilities. “Our next major focus is to turn all of this into actionable data that will make life even easier for our associates and neighbors.”