Our customers and suppliers

Responding to our customers - Commercial Property

Our Commercial Property customers include commercial, industrial and retail tenants, as well as shoppers in our retail centres.

To identify what is important for our retailers and tenants we conducted customer satisfaction research and used the results to develop our insights and Customer Engagement plan for FY10.

Tenant engagement

Engaging with our tenants means we can better understand their needs and identify areas for improvement. In FY09 we conducted an extensive review to assess efficiencies of the core service interactions with the Stockland Service Centre and associated stakeholders. The review focused on three areas which included the key reactive maintenance process, contractor management and invoicing. These areas have now been refined and improved which will result in a more personalised service to our customers and efficient management and payment of our contractors.

One of the key areas where we can provide value and guidance to our office and industrial tenants is in the area of environmental sustainability. We have the opportunity to help our customers improve their environmental performance and this constitutes an important part of our overall commitment to the environment. 

Project Rapport

Project Rapport is a client relationship strategy that aims to achieve greater engagement of all key stakeholders in managing key Commercial Property tenants. The project was initiated in the context of our relationship with our largest office tenant, Optus, and over FY09 has been presented to key government tenants as an opportunity to foster better relationships.

This year, our office tenants told us that the way we respond to their daily operational issues is of great importance. In response to this we have reviewed our service model and streamlined internal processes to ensure our service process is proactive and responsive. In addition we have undertaken extensive customer service training with our employees to ensure they have the tools to identify and respond to the needs of our customers.

Engaging with our retailers on environmental sustainability

We launched a green tenant fitout guide in 2007 to provide guidance to our retail tenants. Building on this work, we are seeking broader engagement with retailers on environmental sustainability.

We have partnered with the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) to promote a business program called Sustainability Advantage. The program is designed to help our retail tenants understand sustainability and add business value and it will be launched in the second quarter of FY10. Participants will have the opportunity to improve their business through innovation, lower costs, improved productivity and enhanced reputation as a supplier and employer of choice.

Rating our customers' experience in our shopping centres

We aim to provide convenient and accessible shopping centres that meet local community needs. To better understand and improve our customers' experience we launched the Customer Excellence Program and Customer Feedback Solutions in FY09.

The Customer Excellence Program involves mystery shoppers rating our centres on all aspects of the shopping experience including signage, customer service, cleanliness of facilities, employee presentation and visibility and availability of service professionals. We also ask the mystery shoppers to tell us what they would like to see improved. All mystery shoppers are local customers and are recruited by an external company.

The Customer Excellence Program benchmarks our centres and every quarter we have seen an average 7 per cent improvement in how our customers have rated us.

In addition, every branded Stockland centre now has Customer Feedback Solutions. These are visible and accessible touch pads located throughout our centres enabling customers to rate our performance. The touch pads include questions on car parks, the cleanliness of our centres and the range of shops. Our centre teams use this feedback to identify areas for improvement. For example, Stockland Wetherill Park in south west Sydney used touch pad information to identify the time in the day when it was perceived that our cleaning standards dropped and worked with cleaners to maintain standards throughout the day.

Raising awareness of access issues

In FY09 we have been working to improve accessibility for people with disabilities in our shopping centres. To help raise awareness of access issues faced by people with a disability, we participated in International Day of People with Disability on 3rd December 2008. In this day, we hosted awareness events at three of our shopping centres: Wetherill Park, New South Wales, The Pines, Victoria and Townsville, Queensland.

Organisations joined us for these events included Guide Dogs NSW/ACT, The Spastic Centre, local council organisations and local radio presenters. Tracy Barrell, an ambassador for International Day of People with Disability and the face of the 2008 Don't DIS My ABILITY Campaign, attended the Stockland Wetherill Park event and spoke about the access challenges faced when shopping as a triple congenital amputee.

Employees who influence the design, development and management of our shopping centres participated in the day. Participants were given tasks to complete in either a wheelchair or wearing goggles, to emulate vision impairments. A person with a disability guided each group and explained the challenges they face. Our teams learned about the importance of light contrast and the difference this can make to the experience of a person with vision impairment. They also learned about where to place the centre directories and customer care desks to make them easier for customers to locate and access. This helped increase understanding of the access difficulties some of our customers face and have led to specific changes, such as review of directional signage placement at our Townsville Shopping Centre.

We also participated in the International Day of People with Disability in 2007 at our Foster Shopping Centre. Our experiences from this day led us to make some changes to the centre, including re-surfacing the concrete in the southern precinct to make it less slippery in wet weather. We also installed a lay-back for easier access to the car park.