The One Amenity That Never Goes Out of Style
In the property and hospitality line, there is a constant rush to have the latest and trendiest amenities, from urban staples such as swimming pools, fitness centers, and business lounges – to more recent, trendy options such as creator studios, infrared saunas, and salt rooms.
Yet amid all these investments into amenity space, another crucial yet often overlooked amenity is neglected – the service that occurs within these spaces.
While creating space is all about size, square footage, and built-up area, service is what takes an environment from simply being “space” to being a “place”. “What’s the difference?” you may ask. Space is simply an area that may be available for use but may be unoccupied. A place is where people go to with a clear intent and purpose in mind – an area used and designated for specific experiences – just like how many cozy coffee shops have turned retail space into a “Third Place” for many people in between work and home.
Service is what takes an environment from simply being “space” to being a “place”.
Service is what makes the difference between a common noun and a proper noun – a subtle nuance, yes, but isn’t nuance what makes all the difference in tipping a brand’s scale?
At URBN Playground, my partner Amy Blitz and I have worked on numerous amenity consulting projects and one of the first questions we are usually asked is about what kinds of new amenities renters, residents, and guests are looking for.
Without hesitation, the first answer on our lips is usually – service. We believe that the person looking at a new or existing rental or condo is choosing a lifestyle, rather than a cold, hard unit of space or built-up area.
A lifestyle is more than just the tangible and concrete but it involves feelings, emotions, motivations, memories, and a sense of place, or belonging.
They involve first and foremost people-driven interactions that are unique, memorable, positive, and personal. Such interactions may happen by chance, but it can also be engineered with the right planning and organization, delivered with intensity and passion. It is such interactions that will be the hallmarks of the next amenity at your property, whether it’s a new property or an already existing one.
To draw from the travel industry, take for example a trip to the museum - a day out at the museum isn’t happenstance; the cultural experience represents efforts that have been years and even hundreds of years in the making to turn a building into a cultural treasure trove.
We feel developments need spaces, and size of the space and other tangible specs are an essential ingredient to building a successful sales and leasing program, but the bigger opportunity for differentiation is service. There are the outliers – buildings with reputations for unbelievable service, but we feel there could be many more and are building a team with the expertise to bring this to life. It’s a process driven exercise in understanding what people want and will want in the future. It involves intent listening, and precise execution because the details are nimble and numerous – very, very numerous.
We believe that the opportunity will be great for those who plan a holistic, immersive experience for their residents. The opportunity is available to all buildings, no matter how big or small, how old or modern. Even if a building lacks a lounge or game room, service is an amenity that everyone can provide. Creating a brand built around service makes perceived value tangible.
Yes, to stay on top of its game, a property will need to keep up with trends, be it the latest co-working spaces with 3D printers or workshops with great tools and virtual reality simulators… but not in a vacuum without the right service. Planned service goals, genuine and sincere interactions and a structured program of events is what we feel will become the new norm. Our focus on being a service provider that will transform spaces into places that create value – value for the users, and value for the developers who manage to successfully deliver service and brand to new residents and customers.
At URBN Playground, we strive to deliver experience through premium, top-notch, hotel-style service. We draw our experience from the luxury hospitality line, infusing unforgettable and memorable experiences for our customers into the places that we manage and operate.
Ultimately, service is the essence of URBN Playground’s core values. It’s what we believe in, and it’s what helps our clients drive results for their business.
It’s In the Details: What Your Bathrooms Say about Your Business
A long time ago, I learned that the details are what matter. My first job was at the Peninsula Hotel in New York City – yes, the same Peninsula where the forks and knives are placed on the table with measured perfection (literally with a ruler at their Hong Kong property). This level of attention to detail may seem absurd to some, but there were very important messages being communicated through every single breakfast served at those tables with measured perfection.
To the guests, the message was: “We will go out of our way and strive towards a self-defined perfection, ultimately to ensure you feel a certain way”. To the service staff, the message was: “There is no margin for error in striving for perfection”. This perspective lent importance to what we did, and made the smallest of tasks feel very important. Even a simple daily routine, serving breakfast, carried special meaning because of the discipline and excellence involved in it.
From setting tables to preparing the food to making sure each guest’s needs were attended to, every task held vision and meaning – to maintain the property’s prestigious reputation and five-star rating. A soft boiled egg had to be precisely soft boiled to exactly the right texture and temperature, with zero margin for error.
These lessons were certainly formative in the launching of our start-up amenity consultancy, URBN Playground.
In this post, I’ve taken a few examples from the restaurant scene here in New York City to illustrate how the seemingly little details can go a long way in creating that top-notch experience for customers and guests. While not all of them may reach the level of measured perfection I mentioned earlier, all these little details do generate feelings and contribute to the experience.
These establishments are winning the hearts and dollars of their customers because of their thoughtful approach to not only their food but also their customer experience. Each of these places I’ve highlighted has a similar approach to how we at URBN Playground operate every day. In each place, I’ve zoomed into a few details which I felt made it memorable, aside from the food (which by default should be good, of course).
Here are my favorite highlights – I hope you enjoy them:
Reunion, Brooklyn: The fact that the owners get their hands busy in serving customers makes all the difference, something which is firmly rooted in URBN Playground’s hands-on approach to amenities management. Alongside our amazing team, you’ll often find Amy and I immersed in the service. Another one of my favorite details that stuck out to me was the unique wallpaper they have in their bathroom’s walls, designed by Flavor Paper. The wallpaper features a quirky mix of prints featuring an eclectic mix of classic characters one would spot on the streets of Brooklyn, from Hasidic men to Notorious B.I.G. It’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to see in secondary areas of a bright and airy café, but it works and definitely leaves an impression.
Sweet Leaf, Jackson Avenue: The building that houses this café was built in the 19th century and is furnished with antiques imported from Paris, along with a host of other memorable details. These include a good hundred or two vinyl records, and a turntable to play them on. The bathrooms at Sweet Leaf are wallpapered with old pages from Star and Enquirer magazines, and decorated with pictures of Glam Rockers from the 80s. This was just not expected and it was memorable.
Babu Ji, Lower East Side Manhattan: There isn’t a better Indian restaurant right now in NYC. Reserve the Chef’s table and enjoy the ride! There are three details I’d like to point out that make this place home: the first, the classic Indian movies playing on the walls of the restaurant. Secondly, the self-service beverage fridge. Lastly (you guessed it), the décor and details that adorn the bathrooms – the walls are painted with a very special message to patrons, but they are in Hindi. It basically says “You son of a donkey, please don’t make a mess”. It’s a literal translation, but you get the drift. They send the clear message that not only money but also a lot of thought went into designing and building them.
Why details matter
Places like these are constantly busy and people keep coming back because of the attention paid to the smallest of details – like the wallpaper in the bathrooms. In the context of residential properties, it’s the details that determine whether tenants renew their lease or whether the value of a property goes up. Especially so when greater and greater incentives are needed to keep tenants or find new ones year over year.
Being able to pay attention to the right details is essentially knowing what motivates your customers. At URBN Playground we believe in and have a passion for connecting people to other people. Our philosophy when it comes to amenities is built around creating connection and community – within cities, neighborhoods, and buildings. We design experiences, lifestyles, and memories that create a deeper sense of community and well-being for every person we touch.
When the details are neglected
Details missed are really opportunities lost. Residential and hotel properties that aren’t thoughtful about the details experienced by their guests should be prepared to be compared with competitors solely on factors such as price and location. Neglecting details dilutes a brand’s value and causes customers to question its vision, mission and core values. This hurts utilization rates, ancillary sales, and future growth for the business, ultimately affecting not only the brand value but the company’s bottom line as well.
Changing the way we look at details at URBN Playground
Dissecting nuanced details to the umpteenth degree in the pre-development process is paramount. As an example, let’s look at a sliver of URBN Playgrounds operations – our uniform procurement and the decision making process.
As a general rule of thumb, staff at every spa, fitness center of amenity facility use polo shirts with an embroidered name of the brand or service provider on the left side of the shirt. At URBN Playground, we’ve changed our thinking and the conversation around uniforms. Our Group Fitness Uniforms are made by luxury fitness wear brand BADIER, who describe themselves as the “First Curated Luxury Fitness, Fashion & Music Boutique.” With BADIER outfits as uniforms, our URBN Playground staff are not only proud and excited to put on their uniforms, but they are also great conversation starters with our customers as well, and ultimately contribute to the overall customer experience.
There is nothing standard or generic about URBN Playground’s approach to amenities, and that’s what makes us special.
Have you experienced any amazing details as a customer lately? Leave a comment, and share what you are passionate about!
Connecting People to Other People, Places, and Experiences
by Jeremy Brutus, Co-Founder, URBN Playground
For most of my life, I’ve been passionate about creating connections – be it connecting people to other people, to places, or to experiences.
This passion has served me well an amenity consultant for the past 15 years. I’ve worked on amenity and lifestyle projects in locations ranging from California to New York to Saudi Arabia, comprising luxury high-rise condominiums, apartments, gated communities, hotels, and corporate fitness centers.
Recently, I decided to take an exciting leap of faith and launch my own amenity consulting firm, Urbn Playground. During my career as an amenity consultant, I was often frustrated by the traditional and outdated approach taken towards amenities.
This led me to venture out on my own in an attempt to revitalize the amenity marketplace. I’m always inspired by stories about people like my dear friend Maria Chatman, who is bringing new life to a traditional industry.
I’ve known Maria for over ten years, and I’ve seen her passionately combine her personal interests as a nationally-ranked triathlete with her desire to make a difference by ending child obesity. In her own words, her current mission is “Helping kids help themselves to a healthier way of life”. She runs fitness programs for kids that are fun and don’t feel like “exercise”, changing kids’ perceptions towards living a healthy lifestyle.
Her story, and many others, prompted me to think about how I could impact my own industry in a positive way.
As someone who lives and breathes community, I believe that amenities should not just be standalone spaces or facilities. They should foster engagement and connection throughout the entire local community.
The Power of Connection
We live in a world that is highly connected on a virtual level, yet as humans, we still long for physical connection. We find ourselves drawn to cozy cafes, communal areas, and trendy bars for one simple reason: connection.
We long for connection, whether to other people or even to the world around us. Seeing and hearing alone is not enough. For powerful, memorable experiences to be created, we need to taste, touch, feel, and smell.
Over the course of my career, I realized that being an amenity consultant is not just about cost savings, SOPs, or hiring and managing staff - although we do all those things. It’s also about doing what brings me the most joy: creating connection.
In the line of work I do, I get to create connections, day in and day out:
Connecting people to people: I connect developers and building managers with vendors. I negotiate best prices between them and forge lasting partnerships. I also connect residents or hotel guests to each other, through community-oriented lifestyle programs.
Connecting people to experiences: I connect people to memorable experiences, from wine tasting sessions, to yoga classes, to beer festivals, and to a whole host of other unique experiences.
Connecting people to places: Perhaps most satisfying of all, I connect people to their cities and neighborhoods in a whole new way. Whether it’s helping them discover an art gallery down the road, an artisanal coffee joint across the street, or a co-working space two blocks away, I help them find hubs, enclaves, and oases to meet their varied needs, creating micro-communities within bustling cities.
Connecting People to People
One of my favorite examples of this was an NYC property project that I worked on. Designed for young, single millennials, the building was mostly made up of studio and one-bedroom units. Over time, the residents grew up, and started having babies.
From a few families with young children, the number grew to over 10 families. From being a tight-knit, young and trendy community, the residents became disparate groups with different identities from when they first moved in.
In casual conversations with the Lifestyle Director, these young parents said that they were starting to feel out of place. In response, the amenity management team decided to start a small play group in the building.
The first play group consisted of just three woman, who began bringing their kids to a makeshift play area. Since then, the group evolved into a tight-knit community of families with children. At last year’s holiday party, almost 20 children joined the fun, and this disparate group of people felt like a community once again.
Connecting People to Experiences
Life is a collection of experiences and memories, some negative and some positive. I am blessed to be able to play a part in creating positive experiences for people every single day. I often tell people that I’m in the business of fun!
It is incredibly fun to create experiences for people that enrich their living experience. I enjoy helping building and hotel managers create unique experiences that distinguish them from the competition.
As an example, one of the projects I've worked on was a multi-sensory wine-tasting experience with the Moore Brothers. We held video conferences with winegrowers in Italy, France and Germany for people to see and hear the people who grow the grapes. We provided soil samples for participants to touch and feel. And of course, everyone got to taste and enjoy the wine at the end! These types of experiences are priceless for everyone that it involves.
Connecting People to Places
The places in which we live, work, and play – the buildings, houses, towns, and cities – add a richness to daily life. Yet in our daily commutes between home and work, we miss out on experiencing our local surroundings to the fullest.
When was the last time you’ve been to a local gig or visited a nearby museum? There are countless things to see and do in and around our cities and neighborhoods. But finding out what to do, when and where, can be daunting with our busy lifestyles. Just try Googling "things to do this weekend". You’ll likely be overwhelmed by the amount of information to sift through.
Through concierge services, we are able to connect people to their city from the comfort of their homes or hotel rooms. We curate and share experiences for residents and guests to enjoy in their local towns, cities, and states.
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In all, it has been an exhilarating ride leading up to where I am today. In preparing to launch out on my own, I’ve received overwhelming support and felt so much joy along the way.
This blog marks the beginning of an exciting new journey – one that I hope to share with you. If you are looking to take your next development project to another level or to inspire your existing residents, I'd love to help. Drop me a note at jeremy@urbnplayground.com and I'll be in touch!
Procedures Versus Empowerment: Which Comes First?
In the service line, it is important for a company to uphold its brand and service level standards. At the same time, it is equally important to provide front line employees with the flexibility and freedom to be empowered to create positive experiences for customers.
In a study published in Harvard Business Review, it was found that customers who had the best past experiences spend 140% more compared to those who had the poorest past experience. At the same time, it’s not just about creating that “wow” experience, but providing reliability and consistency, and being apologetic and quick to correct mistakes when they are made.
According to research published in Forbes, the reward pathways in our brains “over-react disproportionately to losses in comparison to gains. This is why we humans are so loss averse and why understanding how your customers have been let down in the past is so important.” Therefore, “a strategy of minimising disappointments could offer a better return on our investment of time, money and resources.”
So what is the secret to empowering employees to create exceptional customer experiences or to minimize the effects of negative ones? Many employees want to be empowered, and many leaders say they seek to empower their employees. However, for many companies, “empowerment” is still a buzzword. Talking about empowerment at the top and “motivating” employees to “be empowered” isn’t enough.
As long as the policies and procedures in place are overly prescriptive and goals or KPIs set are unrealistic (e.g. closing a ticket in X seconds or zero service failures), employees will be incentivized to play it safe and within the boundaries of the rules, instead of going above and beyond for the customer.
At the same time, companies may in their zeal for empowerment go the opposite direction, and provide too few operating boundaries and guidelines for their staff. While this may give them the freedom to do all that is necessary to service the customer, it also creates a lot of uncertainty and leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Companies that have become legendary for empowering their teams to provide top levels of service, such as the Ritz-Carlton, have managed to successfully strike that delicate balance between procedures versus empowerment. Instead of asking themselves whether to focus on operationalizing service or empowering their staff, they focus on the customer, understanding that it takes both clear operating procedures, as well as empowered staff, to deliver not only good, but outstanding service.
At the Ritz-Carlton, every single employee is famously allowed to spend up to $2,000 a day per guest to delight them or fix a problem, a drastic act of trust and empowerment by the company. Conversely, their Gold Standards are extremely well defined. For instance, their “Three Steps Of Service” clearly defines what service means at the Ritz-Carlton:
A warm and sincere greeting.
Use the guest's name. Anticipation and fulfillment of each guest's needs.
Fond farewell. Give a warm good-bye and use the guest's name.
What the Ritz-Carlton has mastered is separating what can be operationalized (such as greetings and farewells) and what can’t be (going out of the way to accommodate a customer request or fix a problem), and training for the former, while hiring and empowering for the latter.
While operational procedures can be trained for through repetition and reinforcement, an attitude of going the extra mile cannot be trained. This is why getting hired at the Ritz-Carlton is so extremely difficult. Based on the number of applicants and number that actually pass the rigorous screening process and get hired, getting a job at the Ritz-Carlton is touted to be around as hard as getting into Harvard.
This emphasis on service formed the core of the Ritz-Carlton’s business model, and was one of the key strategic elements that Steve Jobs “stole” from the Ritz-Carlton, after enrolling all its new store managers into the Ritz-Carlton’s training and leadership program.
At URBN Playground, we deal with a wide range of frontline staff, from concierge and front desk staff, to lifeguards, fitness trainers, porters, lifestyle directors, and more. We invested three months this past summer into developing a 170-page operations manual with clear guidelines for each role, with detailed guidelines and checklists of things to do before the shift, during the shift, and after the shift. In short, we operationalized as much of what we do as possible, to clearly define for ourselves and our teams what an acceptable level of service means at URBN Playground.
At the same time, we know that there are many things that cannot be trained or taught. Where the do’s and don’ts are fuzzier, such as dealing with customer complaints or out of scope requests, we have turned to our best teacher - past experience - and developed case studies based on real life as part of our operating manual.
For example, instead of giving our staff blanket rules such as “Never entertain out of scope requests”, we provide examples of when it may be inappropriate to do so and when it is okay to do so:
Ask yourself, does this request violate safety policies or will it potentially affect operations?
Example 1: A bather asks a lifeguard to watch her kids in the pool while she leaves the pool area. The pool rules clearly state that children cannot be left unsupervised by an accompanying adult, and hence this is a request that cannot be entertained.
Example 2: A resident asks to turn up the temperature in the gym, which is centrally controlled. You should not do this as it will affect temperatures in other amenity locations as well.
If the answer is no to the above, you may entertain the request:
Example 3: A resident asks a concierge to hold her bike temporarily in the package room. If there is enough space to hold the bike, and entertaining her request does not impact your job, you can entertain the request and potentially make the customer’s day.
With these measures in place, we know that it still comes down to hiring the right people, people who can be trusted to have the customer’s best interests at heart, and to sense what is needed before it is even asked for. We have had the good fortune of hiring some amazing people into the team in our first year of business - we’ve had people who would run out to buy an important piece of replacement equipment at a moment’s notice, out of their own pocket, and people who have gone above and beyond to make a customer’s day.
It is an iterative process, and we are constantly evolving. As we learn new things and develop new best practices from working with top class people, we incorporate this into our operations playbook. At the same time, having a set of operationalized service norms and examples of case studies inspires new staff we hire and serves as a baseline from which to continue improving.