A group of leading property owners, with the support of the British Property Federation, are to form The Real Estate Customer Service Group, a benchmarking club that plans to encourage best practice in customer service and improve the understanding of the link between service and property performance.

The Group, whose supporters include Land Securities, Prudential, The Crown Estate, Grosvenor, Slough Estates and Brixton, will work together to benchmark how far members have progressed in delivering high levels of service to property occupiers and the impact on the bottom line.

Howard Morgan, Managing Director, Kingsley Lipsey Morgan, whose consultancy is promoting this initiative and which will run the Group, says:

"Service benchmarking is commonplace in other industries but undeveloped in the property industry. One of the first priorities will be to enable members to benchmark how far they have advanced in service delivery. We then plan to develop a common basis for comparing customer service performance.”

“Many organisations aspire to be a “landlord of choice”, and our aim is to move this from a vague to a real concept. The ultimate benefit of this work will be the customers of the industry who will receive better service and value for money for their rents and service charges."

Liz Peace, Chief Executive of British Property Federation says: "This is an important initiative for the property industry, which illustrates that many of our best landlords are not content to rest on their laurels, but are keen to further enhance the service they provide.”

“The formation of this benchmarking club goes a long way to showing just how serious the property industry is about listening to and responding to the needs of its customers and to illustrating the benefits that has on firms’ bottom lines.”

“If Property Investment Funds are introduced in the UK it will bring returns under even sharper scrutiny and I believe will illustrate that what differentiates the best from the rest is the experiences they provide. I would strongly encourage other property owners to participate."

Anthony Bickmore, Director of Urban Estates, The Crown Estate says: "This is a really good initiative for the property industry. From the Crown Estate’s viewpoint we believe that it will support our work to improve our responsiveness to the aspirations of our customers and so fits well with our initiatives such as Regent Street Direct.”

“I believe that the establishment of an industry wide club will help us and the whole industry improve our service delivery to our customers alongside adopting things like the Lease Code.”

“Having a benchmarking club will also encourage members to share new ideas and good practice in an open and constructive way. The British Property Federation and Kingsley Lipsey Morgan are to be congratulated in bringing this forward."

Alf Strange, Property Management Director, Land Securities says: "Driving forward best practice and innovation in the services we provide is a key fundamental of Land Securities’ business and to the property industry as a whole.”

“Customers expect good service and we need to go beyond this to create, within the property world, excellent experiences for those who use our buildings and services. There is much we can share already. I see this Group as being passionate about raising standards of service for the benefit of all."

Further information is available from Howard Morgan - Kingsley Lipsey Morgan 0207 887 6155