Case Study: Brickell Bay, Miami Natural Disaster Response

Roxana is the property manager at Brickell Bay, Miami. She has been in this role for the past year and her duties include administrative tasks, day-to-day community management as well as many other operational responsibilities required at Brickell Bay. Roxana works tirelessly to deliver a high standard of service that promotes a functional, engaged, safe condo community. Brickell Bay is perfectly located within Brickell, close to the coastline and only minutes to downtown Miami. Brickell Bay is home to 214 units with approximately double the amount of residents. The vibrant diverse neighbourhood of Brickell has attracted a mixed demographic, from young professionals to empty nesters.

In order to provide Brickell Bay residents with a higher level of service and greater peace of mind in emergency situations, it was important for Roxana and the board to look at current operational challenges and evaluate how they could be automated and streamlined. Major challenges included: Communication - Updating the Brickell Bay residents with important information has always been pivotal in maintaining a functioning condo community. At Brickell Bay, communicating with residents was a very time-consuming manual task that took up unnecessary resources. In particular, there was no quick way to reach out to all residents in an emergency situation. This was a massive fear for both management and residents. Working Remotely – Roxana is often being pulled in many directions and not always available on site. In order to keep productivity high and be able to deal with urgent requests and emergencies outside of business hours, Roxana needed a simple mobile solution to access, review and approve processes remotely. Security & Concierge – Security is of utmost importance to the Brickell Bay community. Many aspects of the security staffs’ daily activities were logged manually. This didn’t allow for easy reporting, which made it difficult for Roxana to make informed decisions on security-related incidences. In the event of a natural disaster, when the risk of a security breach is higher, Roxana was unable to easily review historical data that would help manage risk during this time. In addition to this, the concierge was having trouble keeping up with the number of package deliveries and notifying residents of their arrival. This was a manual and time-consuming task and proved particularly difficult during extreme weather which often causes confusion and a backlog in deliveries.

Brickell Bay had only recently implemented CC to assist the property management team with their daily operations when they were hit by hurricane Irma. While Roxana and the board saw value in the system prior to the hurricane this was solidified during and after the unexpected natural disaster. CC helped Brickell Bay manage their major challenges with: Announcements – When it was announced that hurricane Irma was approaching the Miami coast Roxana was quick to start sending out notifications to residents to keep them up to date with what was going on with the hurricane. In addition to this Roxana used this mode of communication to send out safety tips and procedures quickly and easily to residents’ emails making them feel more at ease with the looming natural disaster. The residents were extremely grateful for Roxana’s proactive approach to keeping them updated. Residents can now rely on quick and efficient communication in other emergency situations that may occur. Mobile App – Prior to being notified of hurricane Irma, Roxana had already planned a vacation. Initially, this worried Roxana as she felt a responsibility to stay and support her condo community during this disaster. However, upon the realization that she could conduct many of the same tasks using the CC smartphone app she was very relieved. Roxana was able to keep residents updated on the hurricane as well as reassure residents of safety precautions, remotely. Residents were extremely delighted by the continued support from Roxana even though she was not physically available on site. Security – Through the use of CC all security-related incidents are now being logged online. Having this digital footprint Roxana and her security team are able to run and analyse security reports. From these reports they are able to devise informed solutions to common issues within the Brickell Bay community. They are also able to review historical logs pertaining to certain events. This is especially beneficial in preparation for future natural disasters. Concierge – The concierge staff at Brickell Bay now log all package deliveries through CC. A notification is sent instantly to the package owner for quick pick up. If a package is not picked up after a set amount of time reminders are also sent to the resident. Storage and organization of packages is simple and can be listed in the system. This streamlined process proved instrumental in the efficient handling of deliveries post-hurricane Irma, who caused many delivery delays.

• Productivity has increased as many manual tasks have now been streamlined.
• Regular communication is easier and takes less time and resources to reach all residents. This is extremely important in emergency situations.
• Critical announcements can be sent remotely from the CC mobile app allowing greater flexibility.
• Board members have peace of mind that they are well equipped to assist their community in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency situation.
• Residents are extremely grateful for regular updates, especially during the hurricane and feel more prepared for future emergency situations.

• Brickell Bay is home to 214 units with approximately double the amount of residents.