Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, on how his firm now creates property management portals for clients, designed to support the growing demand for community focus in the property sector.
What is Spike Global and who is using it?
Spike’s software allows residents to feel safer in their homes, to feel more connected to the spaces in which they live and to feel supported by their community. I would describe Spike Global portals as having the heart and community spirit of apps like Nextdoor, with high functionality, sleek design and user experience at its core. Our software creates micro-communities in specific developments and buildings, allowing for a well-connected 24/7 development.
We’ve successfully rolled out the Spike resident portal to a huge variety of developers and companies. It started at Battersea Power Station to keep residents up-to-date with how building works were going, but since then the technology has developed tenfold. Clients such as, The Crown Estate, Canary Wharf, Ballymore, Fizzy Living, Moda Living, Chelsea Barracks, Renaker, Deansgate Square, Host Students, CA Management, Pocket Living, Apt, all use our proptech software to maintain their communities. Both residents and building managers are benefiting from flexible, user-centric technology that can manage a resident’s journey from browsing a property, to building a life there, from socialising in neighbourhood groups to submitting defects and much more. We take pride in the fact that our software helps create better places for people to work and live.
Can it help buyers?
Our software can absolutely be used to communicate throughout the buying process. We encourage developers to get buyers up and running on Spike as soon as an offer has been accepted. This allows property managers to send out updates, moving in tips, manuals etc – all prior to completion. Battersea Power Station, for example, introduced the portal to residents prior to them moving in. Within the portal they could choose their moving in slots – a very effective way to manage a lot of people moving in at the same time. The portal was a huge benefit to residents at Battersea, receiving speedy responses, attentive customer care and a channel to communicate with new neighbours right from the get-go.
In addition, our software has the ability to manage the entire sales journey. For example, one of our clients, Apt Living, uses Spike as an online brochure, where buyers can register their interest and book a viewing. The buyer then uses the same login details to login to our residential portal to engage with the community, keeping the whole process streamlined for the buyer. Users are able to interact with their property managers and/or developers and submit snagging issues, find FAQs and submit queries. By acting as an interactive hub of useful information, property managers and developers can build robust communities and make them function much more effectively. For end users, it makes people feel invested, valued and better connected to their new home.
Once residents have moved into their new home, the Spike dashboard offers all the tools clients need to create content: events, promotions, forums, clubs, announcements and news. Forum threads and clubs can be grouped by topic, from book clubs to fitness and wellbeing. The property management aspect means deliveries can managed through the app, amenities opening times, visitor parking, defects, key waivers and more. The technology is flexible and can be customised to fit workflows; an effective one-stop shop built around what a specific scheme has to offer.
How has it supported residents during the Coronavirus outbreak?
It's clear that since the outbreak of coronavirus, the most positive communities are the ones that are better connected. Meaningful technology has never been more important.
We’ve setup specific COVID-19 forums for each of our clients, where residents can offer or ask for help from their communities. Alongside these forums, we’ve set up an information centre within the portals dedicated to posting COVID-19 updates, sourcing only reliable government links and helpful advice. Clients can push out notifications to users, so some are sending out simple reminders daily about social distancing, or key pieces of information from the daily briefings. We have a recommended COVID-19 strategy for clients who use Spike, whilst continually adapting that strategy to the changing circumstances we find ourselves in.
As we all know, it’s not just about staying physically healthy throughout the crisis. People’s mental health is equally important. Residents need to know they’re not alone, and maintain some sense of normality. To tackle the potential loneliness, every Friday during the lockdown period, one of our clients, Fizzy Living, hosts an online virtual hangout for residents to meet one another, chatting through video with drinks and nibbles for a social atmosphere. Another example is from our client Moda Living, who’ve set up virtual balcony workouts communicated and organised through Spike the app, where thousands of people have ended up viewing it. We’ve even seen one resident who owns a wine company, and another who has a pizza business, delivering to their neighbours, leaving their orders outside their apartments.
The social side of the portal has been invaluable for people since the lock down. We’ve seen chat threads on sharing food, tips on how to entertain kids, offering to pick up shopping – you name it! Some developments are extending their help to the wider community too. For example in one of the Ballymore buildings, a resident bakes a cake each day and leaves it at the front desk for people to help themselves to. People have started donating small amounts of money, all of which has now been donated to a local food charity. A foodbank at the Fizzy Living Canning Town site was promoted through the Spike Portal, to ensure that those residents who were under stricter self-isolation rules would always have access to supplies, and anything that wasn’t needed was donated to the local community.
Seeing how the app is being used in times of hardship restores your faith in humanity, embracing how we can come together even with social distancing thanks to the help of technology. I’ve seen people post things on threads like, ‘why haven’t we done this sooner’, promising to meet up in real life as soon as the situation allows. Human interaction is the one thing we’ve all taken for granted. It is clear technology is playing a vital role in how people are dealing with the pandemic and we are glad to play a small part in connecting people.
How is Spike helping the property industry?
With an unprecedented pandemic to overcome, never has there been a more significant moment to support one another. Feeling physically alone is fuelling the need to stay connected to our neighbours and loved ones digitally. Even prior to the pandemic, whilst our cities have been getting more and more over crowded, it’s easy to feel alone and lost.
When the world goes through something like this, society will naturally emerge changed. Digital connectivity is actually a very human thing, and as we continue to work, collaborate, socialise and even educate our children through this crisis, people will realise that digital connectivity is the glue holding us all together.
Proptech apps like ours have a vision far beyond COVID-19, of course. Indeed, the traditional face-to-face business style of the property industry may be changing forever, as virtual viewings and AI services become the new normal. By embracing technology and creative solutions, business can remain agile in times of need. We live in a world where we expect information at our fingertips in an instant. By getting housebuilders and property managers to update the way that they communicate to their consumers along their entire journey, from browsing to living, they can be assured that they are meeting today’s new digital age demands.
We all want to be part of a real community with real heart, and Spike is a medium to help that blossom.
For more information about Spike Global, please visit www.spikeglobal.com
About Jeremy Heath-Smith
With a background in technology and innovation, Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, might be better known as the co-founder of Tomb Raider studio Core Design. But after many years in the gaming industry, he and his firm now create property management portals for clients, designed to support the growing demand for community-focused solutions in the property sector. Spike Global is now being delivered to major organisations all around the world, with offices in London, Bournemouth, Dublin, and Shanghai.