One of the best things about providing concierge services on behalf of some of North America’s largest property managers is that Eservus employees get to interact with a lot of the tenants in the buildings we serve. We set up lobby events in as many buildings as we can, talking to the tenants and making sure that they know that Eservus is at their service. We know that everybody is busy and they might not have time to talk to us, so we have to be creative in our approach to the lobby events, doing our best to stand out, make a splash and give people reasons to stop by to see what Eservus is all about. After all, when people are walking through the lobby, they’re always in a hurry to go somewhere else!

One of our more successful promotions was called “Reindeer Games,” a holiday-themed event where we asked tenants in the building to give us their best Rudolph impression with the deer antlers and bright red noses we had on hand. We posted the photos on Facebook, and if people tagged themselves in the photos, they were eligible to win a prize. We signed up tons of new Eservus members, and everybody seemed to appreciate a little silliness in the middle of their work day.

So how do you engage your tenants? Some of the tried-and-true methods that property managers have used in the past are tenant barbecues, ice cream days and holiday receptions. One of the more engaging tenant events that I’ve been involved with was a tenant volleyball tournament that was part of an annual tenant barbecue. The tenants really looked forward to the tournament every year, and after a few years there were some fierce rivalries and serious grudge matches going on. Talk about tenant engagement!

Right now Eservus is using something we call a Virtual Safe to engage with tenants in the building lobbies. We use iPads with a touch-sensitive image of a safe with a virtual keypad that tenants enter a code into. If the safe “opens,” then the tenant wins a prize. Even if it doesn’t open, the tenant still gets a little goodie, like an Eservus-branded pen or chocolate – we don’t want anyone to walk away empty-handed! Tenants love interacting with the Eservus promotions team to enter their code and see if they’ve won, and we love building awareness of Eservus in a fun and engaging way.

You can even turn a negative into a positive with creative tenant engagement. I used to work for a property management company that would be at the ready with $50 gift certificates whenever there was a rare elevator entrapment. The first thing the tenants saw when they got off the elevator was the smiling face of the property manager with gift certificates in hand. What do you think the tenants talked about afterwards, the entrapment or the gift certificate? Probably the gift certificate!

So have some fun with your tenant events and don’t be afraid to get a little creative with your ideas. Your tenants will love it, and you’re bound to make a huge deposit into the tenant goodwill bank account.