The Most Important Metric Every Real Estate Team Should Be Measuring. Are You?
On Tuesday morning at UKREiiF, I asked a room of more than 60 industry leaders a deceptively simple question:
If you had to point to ONE customer experience metric every real estate operator should care about most, what would it be and why?
We all hesitated - and not because customer experience does not matter. We were on stage because we believe quite the opposite. We hesitated because everyone recognised there is no single perfect answer.
At one point, I joked that I practically had to put a gun to everyone's head to force a single answer. Hell, I would have to force myself.
Our panel landed on two main answers - I've listed these and 6 other key takeaways from our Experience Makers breakfast at UKREiiF below.
1. Trust may be the hidden metric underneath everything
Henry Shearer pointed to trust. Real estate has hundreds of years of adversarial landlord-tenant history behind it. If we want strategic relationships rather than transactional complaint cycles, trust matters.
Guy Windsor-Lewis talked about integrity: the trust that an owner or operator will do the right thing, pick up the mess when something goes wrong, keep people informed and continue innovating.
2. Renewal intention matters because it gives you time to act
Cecile Clar gave what I thought was the most technically honest answer. The value is not really in one metric. The value is in designing the right basket of metrics for the asset class, sub-sector and geography, then analysing the combined effect. But if forced to choose one, she chose renewal intention - not renewal rate.
Most landlords track renewals after the fact. Renewal intention asks customers outside the renewal cycle: if you had to renew today, would you? That gives teams time to intervene before dissatisfaction becomes a leasing event.
3. The "why" matters far more than the "what" for CX
These are often the most popular answers because the view is that they cut through all the noise. They reflect whether occupiers genuinely want to continue their relationship with a place over time.
However, a yes or a no in isolation without understanding the reasoning and logic is a bit useless. How do you fix what you don't fully understand? It's why I am a huge advocate of deep qualitative CX insight as opposed to tick box surveys. But I digress...
4. Customer experience has indeed entered the boardroom
Guy made an important historical point. Around 2012–2014, asset owners started stepping into customer experience more directly. Before then, CX was often treated as the managing agent’s domain. Owners did not always feel they needed to care - but shorter lease terms changed that. When occupiers can move more easily, customer experience becomes more commercially exposed. Renewal conversations happen more frequently. Poor experience becomes harder to hide.
Henry made a similar point from the investor side. Boards and investors are increasingly asking for CX data because they understand the connection between occupier experience, brand, retention and capital value.
5. The Industry Still Has a Data Problem
A recurring theme is the challenge of making customer experience data useful at investment level. Cecile framed this brilliantly. If CX data is ever going to be treated more like financial data, the industry needs progress on five things:
Standardisation. There is no common CX taxonomy. Different providers use different questions, scales and methodologies. (I ofcourse favour the RealService Customer Experience Index ... :)
Frequency. Many CX surveys are voluntary and episodic. Financial data has regular reporting cycles.
Auditability. Much CX data is still self-reported, with limited external validation or chain of custody.
Comparability. There is no open benchmark equivalent to MSCI or INREV for customer experience.
Pressure from capital. Regulation may not drive real estate in the same way it drove fintech, but capital allocators can create pressure if they start asking for better evidence.
Many organisations are collecting customer data. Far fewer appear able to interpret it rigorously, connect it to financial performance, or operationalise it consistently. And the mathematics is not always simple.
If rent goes up, was that because customer experience improved? Because the market moved? Because the lease event was well negotiated? Because the building was refurbished? Because the occupier had no better alternative?
Understanding the contribution of CX requires data depth, portfolio-wide evidence and proper analysis. Not just a handful of nice case studies selected because they make everyone look good.
6. Poor CX Can Also Be a Value Creation Opportunity
One point from Henry stayed with me. Customer experience may show up implicitly in investment decisions more often than explicitly. The best operators may underwrite more aggressively because they trust their ability to retain customers. But they may not always say that out loud.
There is also an interesting tension in transactions. A seller may not want to disclose weak customer experience data. But a buyer may actually welcome it, because poor CX can represent a value creation opportunity for a better operator. That is a very real estate point. Bad experience is not always just a risk. In the right hands, it can be upside.
7. Day to day satisfaction is often shaped by operational things as much as design
A big part of the discussion focused on behavioural data. Owners often invest heavily in design intent: roof terraces, gyms, reception areas, beautiful amenities. Those things help sell buildings on tours.
But day-to-day satisfaction is often shaped by simpler things: Does the lift work? Does the booked service arrive? Does the team respond? Does the building feel easy to use? That is why granular behavioural insight matters. It shows the gap between how space was designed and how people actually use it.
8. But the industry still has some way to go
A recurring theme was the challenge of operationalising customer experience properly. Many organisations are now collecting customer data. Far fewer appear fully equipped to interpret it rigorously, connect it to financial performance or operationalise it consistently.
During the session, I launched and presented findings from our new white paper on Customer Experience In Real Estate - including growing evidence linking customer satisfaction to long-term asset performance. You can download the full report on our website.
The discussion reinforced something we believe at RealService.
We are a customer experience and customer intelligence consultancy for the built environment. If you are looking to better understand your occupiers, operationalise customer insight or build a more customer-centric operating model, we would love to speak with you. RealService
Many thanks again to our sponsors Locale and RealService and to the panelists
Guy Windsor-Lewis, CEO of Locale
Henry Shearer, Head of Office & Investment at King’s Cross Group
Cecile Clar, Founder of Gotomarket Minds
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