NEUE LÜBECKER: Housing Cooperative 2.0

Imagine your water tap is dripping and, without even a phone call, the plumber arrives to fix it. It doesn’t take magic, at least not if you are a member of NEUE LÜBECKER Norddeutsche Baugenossenschaft eG. The housing cooperative provides a service that enables tenants to report damage in their apartments with just a tap or a click – 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without being put on hold. An automatically generated email informs the contractor. One look at his smartphone, and two hours later he is on site. The only drawback: he might just appear at your doorstep, wrench in hand, before you have a chance to change out of your pajamas and slippers.

Tenant Services Online makes it possible. The web application from software provider Datatrain GmbH handles tenant concerns via smartphone, tablet or PC. Since early 2015, NEUE LÜBECKER, one of Northern Germany’s largest housing cooperatives, has been using Tenant Services Online for its member services portal. Registered tenants have thus far been able to report such matters as leaky faucets, faulty corridor lamps and clogged pipes. Soon they will also be able to view their tenant account and utility costs online and, with their toes in the sand on a distant beach, tap their phone display to ask the neighbors to water their plants back at home.

“We’re gearing up for the future and becoming more customer-friendly,” says Timo Jürs, NEUE LÜBECKER’s head of public relations and project supervisor for the member services portal with Tenant Services Online. “We wanted to be a trailblazer and establish an innovative identity in the eyes of our clientele.” After all, he notes, people have been handling transactions online for years now in areas like banking, insurance and telecommunications. It was high time, then, to revolutionize the housing industry as well – that is, to make tenants’ lives easier by means of internet-based software solutions.

The revolution at NEUE LÜBECKER began several years ago when the initial version of the member services portal went online – without the support of Datatrain. Advantages to the tenant were minimal, as the application was non-intuitive, and thus cumbersome to use. It was also of limited benefit to the cooperative, because it wasn’t integrated in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, where reference data, such as customer information, building data and work orders, resided. A change was called for. At that point, about one and a half years ago, NEUE LÜBECKER consulted Datatrain and, with Tenant Services Online, thoroughly overhauled its member services portal. It was a resounding success: within a year, the number of users soared from 200 to 700.

Timo Jürs had begun by assembling a team of six employees – IT specialists, technical site supervisors and customer account managers – who were tasked with the implementation of the project, as well as with internal and external project communication. “We let everybody in on the process, right from the start,” says Jürs. By intranet, the team kept the entire NEUE LÜBECKER workforce updated, from the building managers to the board. It sent out extensive documentation on the portal’s operation, and it had the application spot-tested. Then, a few weeks before the starting gun, the tenants were informed of the impending launch via all communication channels: the members’ magazine, the annual report, the website, email, post and, most traditionally, personal conversations and notices in building corridors.
Meanwhile, the technical implementation was running in the background. The new solution was to be compatible with the existing SAP-based ERP system, and was to form a single functional entity with it. Datatrain’s CRM software Tenant Services Online fulfills these requirements. The foundation for this is the modularly structured application Customer Center. This SAP-based solution serves the gathering, entering and processing of all data arising from concerns registered by tenants. Damage reports now flow directly into the system, and emails on processing status are automatically generated and sent to the respective members. The appearance of Tenant Services Online was additionally adapted to the NEUE LÜBECKER corporate design guidelines. A detailed damage catalog was compiled in accordance with the cooperative’s actual building inventory conditions, every case of damage assigned a code, and security levels incorporated for the protection of members’ data. On April 15, 2015, the comprehensively overhauled member services portal went online.

“I’m very satisfied with the solution,” relates project head Jürs. “We’ve achieved a 180-degree turnaround from the prior version. Our new portal is intuitively operable. And what used to be a tedious damage-reporting process is now almost fully automated, which relieves our employees.” NEUE LÜBECKER sees the preliminary registering of damage by the tenant as the greatest advantage for the cooperative. The time saved benefits the company in other places. Jürs says, “We can spend more time on site, looking after our customers and acquiring new ones.”

The portal has been well-received by tenants too. “Customer acceptance is very high,” says Jürs, explaining that users are glad that the housing cooperative responds so quickly to damage reports. He further notes that they are grateful to have an additional communication channel. “Because of their work schedules,” Jürs says, “many tenants don’t easily find the time to pick up the phone or go to the company’s office in person.” These busy tenants welcome the all-hours aspect of the solution especially. Others simply consider phone calls a thing of the past and use the internet for virtually all of their communication, preferably from mobile devices. Jürs measures the positive response in user numbers: “We register five or six new users each week.” The member services portal receives some 120 damage reports per quarter, he says.

Alongside the portal, tenants can still communicate with the management through the traditional channels. “We aren’t looking to have everybody handle all of their business with us online,” says Jürs. “Tenants still send us letters, call us or talk to the building manager when they run into him on the grounds. That hasn’t changed.” He emphasizes the portal’s value as an additional service, a further channel for communicating with the cooperative. And one that the cooperative wants to continue to expand: “There’s still great potential and added benefit for the customer in it,” the PR head says.

NEUE LÜBECKER is moving ahead step by step, with a concrete agenda for 2016. Customers are to be allowed to view and edit their own reference data, such as their email address and telephone number. They will also be able to see how their rent is composed, how high the utility costs are, what these include and what the current value of their cooperative shares is. Moreover, a feedback function is to be incorporated for maintenance and repair work performed, enabling tenants to award stars in the categories of cleanliness, punctuality and friendliness, for example. According to Timo Jürs, the results, which will be fed automatically into the cooperative’s internal quality management, will be an “important instrument for customer satisfaction.” With a click, tenants will additionally be able to submit complaints online and obtain special permits – to keep a pet in their apartment, for example.

Plans have also been laid for the following year. In 2017, the portal is to become a virtual meeting place for the tenants – a sort of Facebook for the fortunate – and the application will map the infrastructures of the respective housing complexes. Before long, users will be logging on to the NEUE LÜBECKER portal to find a babysitter, order a pepperoni pizza or, from their vacation destination, request that a neighbor take care of the begonias on their balcony. “This housing cooperative,” says Jürs, “is indeed all about cooperation” – a value that is soon to be reflected in the member services portal as well. With Tenant Services Online, NEUE LÜBECKER has set its sights firmly on the future. Welcome to Housing Cooperative 2.0.

• Founded in Lübeck on November 14, 1949
• Residential inventory: 15,178 apartments
• Additionally: 146 commercial units; 2,942 garages, underground garage spaces and carports; 2,834 unroofed parking spaces
• Main locations: Lübeck (3,200 apts.), Elmshorn (1,932 apts.), Ahrensburg (1,443 apts.), Schwerin (988 apts.) and Schwarzenbek (819 apts.)
• Personnel: approx. 190 employees

Source: Annual Report 2014