Image Credit : Charter Hall
Project Overview
Charli is a disruptive, market-leading workplace app that harnesses leading PropTech innovations to deliver a valued customer service experience connecting tenants to their environment and local amenities for a better work day. Created by Charter Hall in partnership with CBRE, Charli is a market-first in the commercial property sector, and is the largest scale workplace app currently available in Australia. Rolled out in Brisbane and across Charter Hall’s commercial office portfolio across Australia, Charli is a gamechanger in smart building technology. Using the latest geo-fencing location-based technology, tenants can order lunch, plan an event in the building, join a fitness class or find out what’s happening in local area. Charli delivers a big win in productivity, agility, community creation and sustainability. The app was specifically developed to enable seamless two way ‘push and pull’ communications to enhance engagement, from tenants logging building service requests to push communication to promote localised campaigns e.g. sustainability initiatives like Earth Hour. Designed with Charter Hall's specifications, Charli sets the bar for workplace experience platforms that is also accessible to the whole property industry. The app’s “plug-and-play” configurability allows other property owners to evolve their own tailored experiences. Charli is therefore contributing to industry wide innovation both in Australia and globally. A key success factor was the high level of collaboration achieved on this project. A team of 25 people from Charter Hall and CBRE came together, from technology to property operations and marketing, to achieve the optimal product development and design.
Organisation
Team
Developer: Charter Hall & CBRE
Charter Hall partnered with CBRE, our national facilities management service provider, to investigate and develop a smarter solution to a range of tenant desires and issues. As building owners, managers and developers, our teams receive a myriad of tenant queries each day. Charli delivers a big win in productivity and agility for building managers with real-time tenant service requests integrated into the app. A key success factor was the high level of collaboration achieved on this project.
A team of 25 people from Charter Hall and CBRE came together, from technology to property operations and marketing, to achieve the optimal product development and design.
Project Brief
Through customer consultation and brainstorming with our customer-facing property teams plus market research, we identified the opportunity to harness and combine emerging technologies for a better workday. Our often time-poor tenant customers told us they valued having better information and easier access to available services, as well as a stronger community connection, new ways to improve productivity and an ability to have a positive social impact while at work. These insights combined with knowledge from Charter Hall’s 2,600+ business tenant relationships and CBRE’s expertise in evolving technology and worker preferences were critical to designing an App to address these issues. Rolled out to our 5 office towers in Brisbane and then nationally, as at 11 March 2021 35,340 customers had access to the app. We partnered with CBRE, our national facilities management service provider, to investigate and develop a smarter solution to a range of tenant desires and issues. As building owners, managers and developers, our teams receive a myriad of tenant queries each day. Charli delivers a big win in productivity and agility for building managers with real-time tenant service requests integrated into the app. There have been lots of learnings and insights during the design process and roll-out, as what works well in one building doesn’t always work as well in another. Charli’s in-built flexibility enables us to curate the experience. In 2020, we released Charli Plus (a full service end user app) and Charli Lite (for tenant manager operations) to provide optionality for our customers and partners.
Project Need
Charli is designed to reimagine the delivery of property services, amenities and enablement technologies to foster collaboration and productivity, enhance tenant satisfaction and attract and retain top talent in the world’s leading office buildings. Our time-poor tenant customers told us they valued having better information and easier access to services, as well as stronger community connections, new ways to improve productivity and making a positive social impact while at work. By integrating property services and amenities with advanced digital technologies including automation, Charli has made a tangible contribution to user experience and enabled the creation of onsite building communities so tenant customers can better connect and thrive. Charli is a much valued tool for Property and Tenant Managers working onsite or remotely as the app houses key property information at the touch of a button, such as property team contact details, tenant listings and building operations documents. Charli has been particularly valuable since COVID-19 which has presented a unique set of challenges and opportunities for our office teams and customers. Charli’s hands-free building and device access functionality via HID (e.g. lifts, car parks and printers) has been very useful as we navigate the challenges of returning to work during a pandemic. The app has also played an essential communications role with a dedicated COVID-19 button launched in April 2020 to push Government and building updates to our customers and respond quickly to any queries. Ultimately this has enabled our customers and teams to stay connected in these challenging times.
User Experience
Charli successfully connects and engages building occupants, fosters connectivity and drives productivity for a better workday through smart technology and curated experiences. Charli is specially designed for office workers and is like have a smart personal assistant in your pocket. It can set-up a daily coffee or lunch order using geo-fencing location-based technology that automatically orders when you’re metres away. Secure payment via the app means less hassle and no queuing. Customers can plan events in their building, find out what’s happening locally, access product discounts or join a fitness class. To date, Charli has been rolled out to 6,700 business customers who have downloaded the app. This represents 325 leading businesses including LinkedIn, Macquarie Bank and Microsoft. Industry norms for workplace experiential platforms measure engagement via monthly active users (MAU’s) compared to overall registered users. Charli is boasting 55% MAU’s whereas other benchmark MAU’s sit around 20-25%. Proof that Charli’s innovations have changed people’s lives are in the consistently high levels of tenant customer satisfaction received:
“Charli’s promise was that it would ‘create a better work day’. Since launching, the innovative workplace app has done that in so many genuinely interesting, creative and sometimes surprising ways.” Kate Powell, Macquarie Bank, Head of Production
“Charter Hall have revolutionised how they bring technology to tenants and taken property management to a whole new level. Through their proprietary Charli App, they have seamlessly created an excellent sense of community through innovation and passionate people.” Taryn McLaughlin, Global Sales Manager, Expedia
Project Marketing
Charli was launched across Charter Hall’s flagship office portfolio including in Brisbane with a national rollout to 30 major office buildings in 2019. Charli has successfully achieved more informed and engaged building communities and has been adopted by 325 of Australia’s leading businesses. We combined our customer insights combined with knowledge from Charter Hall’s 2,600+ business tenant relationships and CBRE’s expertise in evolving technology and worker preferences to design and market this intelligent building app. Charli was developed in a highly competitive environment of PropTech innovation. Charli seamlessly combines several workplace systems and functionality into the one app that typically would be standalone. This provides maximum convenience and enhanced user experience for building occupants and property management teams alike. Success measures to date include: 10,645+ registered app users, 10,500+ Customer orders/bookings, 4,500+ wellbeing class participation. Charter Hall’s retail partners, such as cafes, using the app have reported stronger sales amongst 15% of users. This conversion ratio vastly exceeds traditional e-commerce funnel metrics and is testament to the innovation and value-add service that Charli provides. Charli has received widespread industry and peer recognition to date. Charli has been recognised in a number of leading industry awards including being named as Game Changer of the Year in the REA Group’s annual excellence awards, AFR Most Innovative Companies and IBCON Digies. This platform will be available in 700 buildings across the globe, in 15 languages, by the end of 2022 and touch the lives of over a million people each day.
Project Privacy
Charter Hall takes the privacy and security of our customers very seriously.
Privacy was a critical feature of the app development, and the app uses market-leading security and technology to ensure data privacy. Key features of the app functionality all depend on high levels of security, such as 24/7 HID mobile access to our buildings and car parks. This security pass integration into the app provides seamless mobile enabled access also enables access to lockers and ‘follow me’ printing for the ultimate in convenience.
The booking functionality interfaces with hundreds of local businesses and providers so that users can book their next yoga or spin class and event bookings, their details are kept private at all times.
In addition, customers can download building information with a handy storage section for all building-specific documents, which can be emailed instantly and securely.
Finally, secure payment via the app is enabled via Stripe and a secure gateway to ensure privacy at all terms. The app follow best practice data marketing and data management, with clear opt-ins and opt-outs, as standard.
Digital - New Service or Application
This can be any new service or application from a start-up to an industry leader. It’s not just bells and whistles we're after but true innovation, exceeding expectations and filling a void that had previously been open.
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