Spike is an app-based software dedicated to specific buildings or developments, creating well-connected 24/7 communities. The streamlined portal allows residents to feel safer in their homes, more connected to the spaces in which they live and supported by their community.
Since launching in 2015, Spike’s resident portal has so far been installed across a variety of developers and businesses. Starting at Battersea Power Station, Spike was initially rolled out 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, and Apt, all use the Proptech software to maintain their communities far beyond the point of completion. Long-term social engagement to create a sense of wellbeing and identity is a key element of what the software provides.
Both residents and building managers are benefiting from the flexible, user-centric technology that can manage a resident’s journey from browsing a property and submitting defects, to building a life there.
Jeremy comments, “We make it our business to understand how communities interact with each other and how we can improve this. At its core, successful communities are connected communities. And during lock down, meaningful technology has never been more important. For example, we’ve setup specific COVID-19 forums for each of our clients, where residents can offer or ask for help from their communities. We’ve set up an information centre 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.”
Alongside forums and news alerts, the Spike app dashboard provides users with all the tools they need to create and manage content, including events, promotions and clubs. Grouped by topic, developers have set up clubs from community fitness and wellbeing, to virtual book clubs.
For property managers, the portal offers a streamlined management tool that can oversee deliveries, amenities, visitors, defects, key waivers, answer queries, post community events, and even ask new homeowners for feedback.
For those who’ve just moved in, the Spike app allows them to submit snagging issues, pay invoices, and book meeting rooms, bringing refreshing simplicity to both resident and staff lives. “The app is a one-stop, easy solution to roll out to communities,” says Jeremy, “built around what a specific scheme has to offer. By offering an agile, interactive hub, property managers can build robust communities and make them function more effectively. End users feel invested, valued and better connected to their new home.”
It’s clear developers which use Spike are conscious that their residents’ mental health has been cared for throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Jeremy continues, “In order to maintain a sense of normality and to tackle the potential loneliness, every Friday during the lock down period, one of our clients, Fizzy Living, hosted 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 set up virtual balcony workouts communicated and organised through Spike the app, and viewed by thousands of people. We even saw one resident who owns a wine company, and another who has a pizza business, delivering to their neighbours, leaving their orders outside their apartments.”
Jeremy continues, “We live in a world where we expect information at our fingertips in an instant. Driven by recent leaps in technology, and the pandemic, people today have redefined their relationship and expectations from the working and living spaces they inhabit. Further to these fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, 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.” “Spike guides housebuilders, developers and property managers through the process of updating the way that they communicate with their consumers at each stage of their relationship, assured that they are meeting today’s new digital age demands. Spike allows your community to simply thrive in one place. 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, please visit www.spikeglobal.com.
