Former WeWork executive Dominic Penaloza is reinventing real estate in Asia by launching Asia’s first PropTech innovation studio. Called REinvent (“RE” is short for “real estate”), this “real estate startup studio” focuses on tech specifically for the real estate industry.

Consisting of a mix of 45 technology and real estate industry veterans, REinvent is an in-house, full-time, and full-stack technology development organization. All designers, engineers, real estate operators, etc. are based in offices in Singapore, Shanghai, and Taipei.

REinvent is backed by four of Asia’s largest property companies. JustCo is the leading co-working company in Asia-Pacific, which is backed up by these big property owners in Asia, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, multi-national property developer Frasers Property, and one of Japan’s leading real estate companies Daito Trust.

According to the company’s website, REinvent’s mission is to “reinvent real estate using its core competencies of technology product development, business model innovation, and venture building.” Through its “innovation studio”, REinvent hopes to create a repeatable process that creates a “large and profitable standalone PropTech business.”

So far, REinvent has two ventures in its portfolio. Switch is an on-demand platform for workspaces. With over 2,000 workspace desks across 25 different locations, individuals and businesses can book a space to work in and pay by the minute. Also, the company offers what it calls “Switch Booths”. These private work pods look pretty cool. They look like you could be in some sort of sci-fi and outer space container. And, when you’re not in the office or at home, they might offer you the right amount of peace and quiet needed to jump on a quick call.

The company’s other venture is SixSense. This software is like “Google analytics for space.” Using artificial intelligence, SixSense gives you data-driven insights so you can better optimize and utilize your space. But, it doesn’t just offer spatial analytics. The software also provides a social distance detection service. It can automatically measure if social distancing rules are being complied with, and it can send out overcrowding alerts to teams in real-time.

“We believe the future of real estate is when people will consume it as a service. This would unlock the world’s most precious asset so that more people can use it in more ways, adding a new dimension to the relationship between the landlord, tenant, and non-tenant,” said Penaloza, CEO of REinvent.

So far, the company seems to be headed in that direction.

Leasing approval for your next apartment may not reside in the hands of a human being.

Automation has become an integral part of the decision process for landlords when it comes to deciding who to accept as tenants. Screening tools such as ScorePLUS from CoreLogic use a “statistical lease screening model” that calculates a score and determines a potential tenant’s overall risk. CrimCHECK, another product from CoreLogic, can be used by landlords to search a database of more than 80 million booking and incarceration records across 2,000 facilities. This type of software helps landlords and large apartment complexes streamline their processes and reduce manual reviews of leasing applications.

Housing advocates, however, view such automation as more of a problem than a solution. According to advocates when screening tools bypass human “judgment calls”, those decisions fail to take into account critical details and attempt to solve complex choices with a simple pass/fail algorithm. Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project, says that nuance is lost when landlords solely rely on automated screening tools and don’t always capture extenuating circumstances around a possible tenant’s record.

Large automated systems often have inaccuracies as well. Monica Webly, the deputy director of litigation at the Legal Action Center, has said that such checks are “notoriously” inaccurate. For example, a record might end up including information from someone with a similar name, leading to a denial in a renting application for a tenant.

“I’ve looked at more criminal records reports than I could count, and I would say that well over half the ones I’ve looked at had some kind of inaccuracy,” Dunns said.

Companies like CoreLogic have faced lawsuits over such inaccuracies. In 2015, a South Carolina man sued the company after he was flagged by a CoreLogic tool as a registered sex offender due to someone with a similar name. While the man was eventually able to resolve the issue, the process took weeks and cost him the apartment he was applying for as a result.

As automation increasingly becomes a part of our everyday lives, scenarios like the above will become more common. Although software like CoreLogic can help landlords process information faster and reduce human error, it comes with its own set of downsides. How to strike the right balance for things such as leasing applications, is the million-dollar question.

At least not all automation has such drawbacks.

A team of 3 researchers have published an interesting study on how customer service can be improved by recognizing a customer’s stress level before a connection with your business is made.

For example, a customer can often be anxious over using a particular service, i.e., a funeral home or a lawyer in connection with a divorce. By learning more about how your clients feel when they call your business, you can better manage the customer experience. This offers your business a more effective customer base of referrals and repeat business.

The researchers identified the following steps to manage stressed-out customers:

1. Find out how your customers are feeling when they need your service.

One reason so many breast cancer facilities are free-standing, away from the main hospital complex, is because women voiced their ideas to the healthcare team designing the facilities. Women wanted coordinated care under one roof, but felt like the hospital was not a calming environment. Use your empathy to walk in your customer’s shoes to change the experience.

2. Hire not only for skill, but attitude and personality.

Employees who love their job can’t be trained. The passion and enthusiasm, even for a high-stress career like a cancer nurse or funeral director, cannot be taught. Look to bring on team members who have empathy for your customers and understand that business is all about customer service. It’s far easier to teach someone the skills needed for a job than it is to teach them to be motivated to work.

3. Study your approach to the customer’s journey.

How does your business interact with the client? From the first link online or phone call, to the payment options, what is the customer’s experience? Do they come out more stressed, or less stressed than before? Address the high-stress interactions by providing information about your services. For example, when calling to view a listing, what can your customer expect?

4. Give the customer more control over the service.

Dealing with a mechanic who tells you that your engine is shot is highly stressful. Instead, learn to be more specific and talk to the customer in a language that can be understood by someone without technical knowledge. Make sure your customer has one point-of-contact throughout their experience. Have a plan B in place for when that individual is sick or goes on vacation. Empower your customers through today’s technology, maybe an app that tracks the sale. There’s no excuse today for poor customer service and information.

I would highly recommend that every real estate professional read the research from Harvard Business Review. Leonard L. Berry, Scott W. Davis, and Jody Wilmet packed so much information into their report that there’s no way I could cover it all here.