Technology has changed our lives for the better in many ways, from employment to retail services. Now, AI technology has started to make inroads in the real estate and housing markets due to more people being indoors due to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the United States Department of Commerce has noted that sales in e-commerce are up 35% in Q3 2020 versus Q3 of 2019. This stat proves that more people are ordering things (groceries, retail items, food delivery, etc.) from the internet, and that trend is only going to continue upwards.
The Condominium Industry
Traditionally, the consensus about condos is that they’re where retired folks head off to when they retire. As a result, the usual retirement regions in the United States (Florida, Arizona, California) have a bustling condo industry, especially in Florida. However, there’s been an industry shift in recent years as more and more younger people are becoming condo owners. Perhaps owing to this influx of younger demographics, the condo industry has started to embrace newer technologies that have been in place for the last few years. We’ll look at a few of the changes below.
Smart Power Consumption
In states like California and Arizona, where power usage has become a problem for the grid, an increasing amount of companies are starting to switch to intelligent sensors on their power equipment. These sensors can keep track of critical stats such as environmental conditions and ambient temperatures to keep equipment running efficiently. For example, instead of having an HVAC unit running at all hours of the day and night, prematurely wearing out motors, the sensor can cycle runs at the most optimum points of the day. This keeps the condos cool and also saves the condo company money on monthly power bills.
Parcel Lockers
A large condominium complex can have hundreds of tenants, and it’s not unusual to have 20 to 30 delivered parcels of mail or packages in a single day. This can wreak havoc for the service desk to have a mountain of packages to go through and contact every single tenant about their waiting package. Instead, with new technological advances, the condo complex can have a parcel locker put on-site within the office complex. These lockers are all hands-free operations as the tenant will have the delivery confirmation number either in hand or the scanned barcode displayed on their smartphone through an app. The tenant can walk up to the unit, either has the built-in barcode reader on the unit read their smartphone, or manually type in the confirmation number once the unit recognizes that the tenant is the correct recipient of the package, the machine displays which locker number that the package is in and unlocks the locker door for the tenant to get their package.
Customer Service
Instead of having a traffic jam in the front office of tenants seeking answers to their questions, many condo companies are now turning to AI or Artificial Intelligence technology to handle this aspect of the business. These AI programs are chatbots or virtual service assistants that can answer many basic questions that tenants may have. These chatbots can be accessed through the condo’s website or with a smartphone app that the condo company can release for their customers to use.
The chatbots are easy to program, and you can arm them with as much information as you can to answer a laundry list of options and queries. Suppose a tenant asks a more directed question or a question that the chatbot can’t answer. In that case, the chatbot can either transfer the chat to a live chat with a service desk representative or list the front desk phone number to call for further information.
Suggestion Boxes
In the old days, businesses would have suggestion boxes near the front doors for outgoing clients to drop in a suggestion into the box to make service better. This idea can be achieved nowadays with personalized questionnaires and surveys that can be done through a smartphone app, and the answers will go directly to the condo coordinator or the condo complex owner themselves. This is one of the ways that a client can throw out a suggestion and get it to higher-ups within the company.
Final Thoughts
Technology continues to change our lives for the better each day and continues to change the condo industry with each passing year. The future looks bright with even more personalized technological advances right around the corner to efficiently service condo owners and tenants to the best of the company’s ability.
