About 99 Gresham Street

99 Gresham Street, a mixed-use commercial building managed by Savills with over 500 occupiers, launched Locale back in 2018 to digitally transform the building through enhanced customer engagement and simplified operations.

The Challenges

1. Communications 

Prior to implementing Locale, 99 Gresham Street’s main communication channel between customers and building staff were emails and calls. Unable to keep up with a backlog of queries, concerns, and issues from the hundreds of occupiers, 99 Gresham Street redirected communications to their newly launched Locale portal, enabling staff to streamline the vast communications to a single hub. This includes:

• Notifying all property stakeholders such as occupiers, occupier representatives and building staff of important information such as fire procedures and safety measures.
• Allowing building staff and occupants to log building issues through the portal helpdesk and track its progress.
• Track and manage deliveries with an alert sent to the occupier of its arrival.
• Housing digital forms on the portal such as parking permits, further removing email requests from occupants.

This has led to a significant decrease in emails to the building team, who can now focus on stronger building processes and procedures, and customer engagement.

2. Visitor management

The visitor experience of creating a welcoming front-of-house was a priority. Using the Visitor Management module, receptionists effectively have an ‘assistant’ that boosts workflow, with the system handling the entire process from visitor data entry to printing professionally branded badges. Further to offering a seamless visitor experience, the Visitor Management module doubled as a security system for 99 Gresham Street, with staff easily able to identify those who forgot their pass and keep a traceable database of everyone coming in and out.

3. Integrating with the building ecosystem

Being able to integrate with existing systems used within the building was an important factor in using Locale, as this improved the overall management of the building delivering a better customer experience to the occupiers. Among these projects, it was implemented an integration of the Locale Helpdesk with the building CAFM system, and with a digital door access platform which provides smart access software alongside an existing access control system allowing keyless entry into a building. The integration with the CAFM system enabled to remove the need for the site to manually log requests on this system with the data syncing across from the Locale Helpdesk automatically. The smart access feature has proved its connectivity and data protection for access through key landlord-managed door entry systems during its first phase and is currently undergoing further development. The next stage currently in development will aim to bring more granularity in terms of the permission-levels needed for individual floors via access gates and lifts to the occupier demised areas, which would enable to expand the use of this services across additional doors within the building and notably within occupier demises.

“It’s uncommon for commercial buildings to invest in an occupier-facing portal. At Savills, we want to embrace the digital age and engage with the people who occupy our places and spaces by using cutting edge technology to improve the experience for those working and visiting our buildings.”

Steve Winterburn

The Outcomes

99 Gresham Street has seen their occupiers embrace Locale, especially since the arrival of COVID 19, as the portal supported building teams to update the users quickly and conveniently on critical information such health and safety measures, government guidelines, and return-to-work policies. Building processes and procedures at 99 Gresham have strengthened, with all communications between occupiers and staff now logged through the portal, eliminating the possibility of raised issues to be missed or lost amongst emails.