“There’s no way we could go back to the old way… our clients have gotten used to the speed that we’re able to deliver”
Allie McCracken, Associate at Transwestern in Dallas, has worked on industrial and office searches. In the past she did traditional market surveys: she’d start with a CoStar report, then put it into a spreadsheet with the points that she wanted to touch on and the information her client asked for specifically.
Since using LeaseUp she’s been able to create digital surveys that clients love in a fraction of the time. “It's foolproof.”
Once she has the raw data she needs, it takes Allie anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to send her client a LeaseUp survey. That used to take a day or more when she had to manually create the surveys as spreadsheets. “There's no way that I could go back to the old way of doing surveys. On the mass quantity level that we're putting out deliverables, there's no way that we could go back to the old way. Our clients have gotten used to the speed that we're able to deliver those.”
If Allie couldn’t use LeaseUp tomorrow, her work output would transition to something “less professional, like a PowerPoint or Excel sheet.” In addition to major gains in speed, clients have also become accustomed to the level of polish and professionalism of LeaseUp deliverables.
Prior to LeaseUp, when Allie had the survey data she needed, she would shoot a spreadsheet to marketing, then wait. It’d be at least a day turnaround for a typical market survey, sometimes two days depending on her marketing team’s availability. “They have a million other things to be doing themselves and timelines to meet. If they have stuff on their desk, market surveys get pushed, and I lose sleep because the survey hasn't gotten sent out.”
The old system also created openings for manual error. Once Allie got a draft back from marketing, she’d go through it with a fine-toothed comb to look for any errors that might need correcting. After everything is confirmed, it’s time-consuming and difficult to update the survey after it’s sent to the client. The final file format is InDesign, which means she would need to get additional help if any more editing was required.
Using LeaseUp, Allie says, “You cut time not just through the process, but you also cut time not having to involve another party, so you're saving them time, and yourself. I think the best part is you don't have to go through [the survey] with a fine-toothed comb because it's automatically generated, so there's not going to be an error.”
Allie refines and edits the data inside of LeaseUp throughout the entire transaction process. “It's a living, breathing document. It's not stagnant.” LeaseUp evolves throughout the transaction to suit clients' needs, from site selection to tour. When Allie sends the initial survey to a client, she lets them know that if another option hits the market, she can build on top of the pre-existing survey directly on the platform.
Allie estimates there’s probably not a single LeaseUp survey that she’s ever sent to the client, then never touched again. As her client’s needs change, LeaseUp evolves. When it’s time for a tour, Allie goes back into LeaseUp and creates a report featuring the properties her client wants to see in person. LeaseUp remains in use during the tour, as clients can leave comments in real time.
LeaseUp evolves with clients’ changing needs, and adapts along with the fast-changing commercial real estate market. "With how quickly things are changing all across the country, you're doing your client a disservice if you're not updating those surveys,” Allie says. “So it's awesome, just from that standpoint alone."
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