‘KEY TO PROVIDING QUALITY SERVICE IS TO UNDERSTAND ONE’S CLIENT’

Community Management is no cakewalk, especially with the growing market today. It takes time, patience, and a lot of training to perfect that skill to provide the best service to your clients. Having bagged many key projects last year, Eltizam Asset Management Group, have been delivering tailored solutions to suit their clients’ needs. Megha S Anthony catches up with Mohammed AlSharaf, COO, Eltizam Asset Management Group, who tells her that the key to providing quality service is to understand one’s client.

Key Milestones 

As one of the leading physical asset management companies in the UAE, Eltizam, provides best-in-class asset management services to clients across a wide range of industries and sectors. The company offers holistic services through its subsidiaries Three60 Communities and Tafawuq Facility Management. Tafawuq Facility Management coordinates and oversees the maintenance of all facilities and delivers tailored solutions to suit clients’ needs. Three60 Communities provides community and property management solutions for both master planned communities as well as stand-alone towers. Three60 Communities also offers its services through Three60 Leisure, Three60 Energy, and Three60 Real Estate, while Tafawuq Project Services operate under the umbrella of Tafawuq Facility Management.

Looking back at 2018, Mohammed Al Sharaf, says that it has been a good year as they have been witnessing double digit growth for the last five years. “We have bagged more than 10 contracts in 2018 alone. Growth has been constant at Eltizam and now that we have ventured into Oman, we have more than 35,000 units that we manage for our clients across UAE and Oman,” expresses AlSharaf. Looking back, AlSharaf says that a key milestone that he is proud of is the team that works behind this growth. “We have people who are well-equipped to handle different kinds of projects (e.g. residential, retail, commercial, etc.) and the expertise to manage complicated situations. We are proud of the team and we look forward to managing many more key projects together,” he adds.

Plans for 2019

The future is certainly bright for Eltizam Asset Management. The year 2019 will be all about technology and how it drives our business forward. Al Sharaf says that they now plan to enhance their customer happiness framework with the help of technology. “In 2018 we have rolled out the Voice of the Customer (VOC) program via specific customer portals at each community in order to achieve customer happiness. We are looking into technologies that will make it easier for the end user to get connected with us any time of the week or day. Technology today is making it a lot easier to reach out to our customers on a more personal level and solve their problems immediately,” he adds.

Community Management

Providing their services to various sectors can be a challenge. But when asked what is lacking in Community Management today, AlSharaf says that it’s not about what is lacking in the industry but the ability to understood the client’s needs completely. “When you are handling so many different clients across Oman and the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and RAK) there arebound to be different degrees of expectations, and meeting these expectations can be challenging. Which is why we at Eltizam for the past few years have been focussing on delivering customer happiness within our communities. So the challenge lies in how we define customer happiness and what are the characteristics of community happiness. Our aim has been to understand this and excel in it to provide superior services to our communities,” he adds.

Adding Value

Having their presence in the UAE and Oman, Eltizam Asset Management has been adding value to their projects and have plans for further expansion in the GCC in the near term. Al Sharaf explains how they plan to add value by not only understanding the customer but also enabling the customer to understand them and their services better. For instance, he explains that customers are still concerned about the calculation method of service charges. He says that as a service provider it is our duty to explain and educate the customer about these maintenance of the developments, which will ultimately result in them realising the importance of the charge and why it is needed. “We aim at adding a positive impact on our clients and enable them to understand how the services are beneficial to them,” he adds.

Expo 2020

There is no doubt that in our industry, everyone’s attention is currently towards the build up to Expo 2020. AlSharaf says that it is an important event for Eltizam Asset Management as well. “We are looking forward to the Expo and I believe it is a great platform for us to introduce ourselves to different customers and understand what they offer in their countries and we can use and learn from their experience.