Meadowhall Shopping Centre, Sheffield
Meadowhall, which is located on the outskirts of Sheffield, is Yorkshire’s premier shopping destination and one of only six out-of-town super-regional shopping centres in the UK.
Attracting 25 million shoppers every year, it provides 1.4 million sq ft of high quality retail and leisure space to a diverse range of international, national and local brands. Meadowhall needed a way to communicate with over 8,000 staff and integrate the multiple tenant portals that were in place including sales collection, staff car parking and the existing extranet system.
HOW MEADOWHALL INTEGRATED MALLCOMM
Meadowhall wanted to integrate a number of systems including:
- Footfall Reporting
- Parking systems
- Loyalty programmes
- Competition forms
- Feedback forms
- Staff loyalty offers
- Refurbishment information
- Job opportunities
Meadowhall established Mallcomm as the app for everything the staff could need relating to work – from travel information to health & safety information.
Key Statistics as of March 2022:
- 290 Total Tenants Active
- 8,642 App Users
- 3,820 Content Items
- 292 Registered Tenants
- 5.03 Million Content Views
- 99% of Portfolio
Mallcomm X Töcksfors
Part of Olavthon Property Group, Töcksfors Shopping Centre thrives as a cross-border retail hub, leveraging price differences between Sweden and Norway to attract a steady flow of customers within their 40 stores. The centre serves as a key economic player in the region and takes pride in its environmentally friendly operations and energy-efficient systems.
The Challenge
Before Mallcomm, Töcksfors used an app that only allowed one-way communication between centre staff and tenants. The lack of interactivity meant that it wasn’t often used and centre management had to run all protocols, events and communication with tenants over email, not knowing if their message had been seen or understood.
Madeleine Ward, Töcksfors Centre Manager and previous Retail Manager at Monsoon/ Accessorize, recalls the day when a Fire Alarm was tested in the Töcksfors Centre. Despite sending out emails to the managers within the 40 stores ahead of time, the whole centre evacuated on the day of the test instead of following test protocol.
Not only were sales lost during this period, as staff and customers left the stores, but it led to mass confusion within the centre. Without a single hub for information, tenants and customers were unsure where they should be going or what they should be doing. This solidified Madeleine’s decision to look for a central operating system with trackable, scalable communications for Töcksfors.
We wanted a way to have two-way communication within our shopping centre to enable everyone to become one big team instead of “them and us”. It was also really important for all centre information to be held within one hub; giving everyone a single source of truth for centre updates.- Madeleine Ward, Centre Manager, Töcksfors
The Solution
Paperless: From Pipedream to Reality
Töcksfors were looking for a new solution that would put all centre news and information in one place. They were keen to move away from disparate systems to achieve cohesion within their shopping centre while also being environmentally conscious.
Moving away from paper handbooks and mass printing provided us with a clear, digital hub for all of our manuals without any waste involved. It also meant that staff could send us instant queries on any information we provided on the app. This two-way communication has been a real game-changer for us and has helped us to understand the key challenges our tenants are facing, as well as any ad-hoc feedback.
Peace of mind
The app has allowed the centre management team to get the right message to the right person at the right time, with full control over who has access and visibility.
Now, when it’s time for a Fire Drill, the team has everything they need to provide instant push notification reminders to supplement their comms.
With our last provider, we didn’t have the ability to add or remove contacts within our CRM. This meant we had a longer process for getting new joiners onto the app, and it posed a risk for security with leavers who could still access the app even after they left. With Mallcomm, centre management has full control over access rights and bespoke views, giving us peace of mind and autonomy over what information is viewed and when.
Roots in retail
One of the deciding factors for Töcksfors choosing Mallcomm was because of its roots in the retail industry.
Understanding the full lifecycle of a shopping centre is why Mallcomm provides a solution to reduce costs, decrease risk and increase NOI for retail centres.
It was clear the Mallcomm team knew the challenges specific to the retail industry, what’s important to tenants and landlords alike and why it’s so necessary for everyone to be on the same page.
The Results
Before Mallcomm, centre management and tenants had more distance between them. Contact wasn’t easy or instant and not all tenants could receive updates that affected them. Now, everyone knows where they can find information and how to give feedback that encourages centre improvements.
Having an intuitive platform means that centre management can complete tasks with speed and accuracy, giving them time to focus on what’s important.
Before Mallcomm, 10 per cent of our work week was taken up with newsletter creation. Today, we get that time back to focus on more time-critical projects. In 4 months, we’ve saved 84 hours in Newsletter creation alone.
The whole process has been very smooth with good cooperation and flexibility. Mallcomm has always been available for consultation and so far we have experienced a high level of service.- Carin Olsson, Marketing Coordinator at Olav Thon
