After Acquiring Basin Street Properties, Equity Office Wastes Little Time Going to Work Improving Tenant Relations and Showcasing the Equity Office Property Management Platform

February 14, 2006 on 4:56 am | In The San Francisco Region, North Bay

Customer Satisfaction Top Priority For New Petaluma Office

PETALUMA, Calif. (Feb.14, 2006) – Following its acquisition of the Basin Street portfolio throughout the North Bay of San Francisco, one of the first orders of business for Equity Office was to rapidly demonstrate the Equity Office customer service focused business model throughout the 36 building, 1.43 million square foot portfolio.

According to Mark Geisreiter, senior vice president with the San Francisco Region, this strategy involved two significant steps. The first step was to appoint senior property managers to oversee the North Bay portfolio. However, in addition to revamping its North Bay property management team, Equity Office also needed to create a new centralized presence for the North Bay. The company accomplished this by opening a new “pod” office in Petaluma to accommodate the newly acquired Santa Rosa and Petaluma offices.

The company has centralized offices in the following locations, not including the new Petaluma office:

San Francisco: One Market, San Francisco.
Includes 14-operator call center, entire West Coast legal department, and maintenance, accounting, construction, and leasing professionals.

Peninsula: Metro Center Tower, 950 Tower Lane, Foster City-
Includes engineers, maintenance, construction and leasing professionals

East Bay: Treat Towers, 1255 Treat Blvd, Walnut Creek
Includes engineers, maintenance, construction and leasing professionals

Marin: Larkspur Landing, 700 Larkspur Landing Center:
Includes engineers, maintenance, construction and leasing professionals

“We launched a new pod office as one of a number of proactive initiatives we implemented throughout the new portfolio to improve the company’s leasing process, to elevate customer service, and to make the company’s service delivery more cost effective. The property management, leasing, engineering and construction teams are located in the new pod office allowing for synergy across all cross-functional groups. All teams work directly out of this office. There is also a ‘touch-down’ office located in Santa Rosa that is utilized by the engineering and property management teams overseeing the Santa Rosa Portfolio,” said Geisreiter.

With the addition of new team members and the pod office, Equity Office has focused on increasing the visibility of the property management function and responsiveness to customer concerns in the North Bay.

“From day one, there was a concerted effort on the part of the property management team to be out at the properties and interfacing with the customers. Personal introductions were made and interviews were held to determine existing issues that required resolution. In addition, we implemented an on-line service request program Manage My Service Request, allows for quick, efficient resolution of customer concerns,” said Geisreiter.

The Manage My Service Request program is a user-friendly, efficient way for customers to place service requests 24 hours a day, seven days a week through email or the Equity Office website. According to Geisreiter, the program benefits customers by increasing accuracy in responding to requests, providing automatic updates regarding the status of a service request, tracking real-time progress of the request and providing an electronic record of customer service request history.

As part of the North Bay outreach, customers were instructed on how to use the program to insure a quick response to the service requests needs. Equity Office also implemented a follow-up program whereby the property manager or engineer called or stopped by the customer’s office to ensure that the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

“Since you became our new owners, I have seen prompt and professional responses to our maintenance concerns at our offices,” wrote one customer. “I can see working with your staff is really going to make a difference. My secretary and investigators could not believe how fast and efficient your team’s actions were.”

About Equity Office

Equity Office Properties Trust (NYSE: EOP), operating through its various subsidiaries and affiliates, is the nation’s largest publicly traded office building owner and manager with a total office portfolio of 626 buildings comprising 112.4 million square feet in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Equity Office has an ownership presence in 24 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and in 103 submarkets, enabling it to provide a wide range of office solutions for local, regional and national customers. For more company information visit the Equity Office website at http://www.equityoffice.com