Customer experience is a crucial aspect of building any brand. For us this means taking away the stresses of having to do more than what should be necessary, including knowing where to find all the information about your home, being there for residents to answer questions in a timely manner, filling in forms and being kept informed of the process. Landlords and shared living managers are recognising that how a housemate feels about their business should come to the forefront, on par with the physical and aesthetic elements of the home.

Overall consumer needs have changed considerably when it comes to digital experiences, forged by some of the more forward-thinking sectors such as retail and hospitality. It has long been recognised that the property sector has fallen behind in this regard.

Although many proptech solutions have risen to the challenge, the industry is wide and fragmented, and has thus far failed to provide a comprehensive solution to address the specific needs of managing a coliving business.

A big problem appears to be the lack of integrated technology to tackle property management all in one place. So instead of being able to automate everyday tasks which follow a logical set of rules, we are duplicating work with bits of the same information processed and stored in the cloud, management software, spreadsheets and siloed communication tools - none of which have been built to work seamlessly together in this scenario.

In a sector where good customer experiences create better housemates, and better housemates create better investments, it’s essential to be able to provide these experiences consistently and at scale as the business grows and builds its brand.

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Modern Consumers Expect a High Standard of Service adn Experience

A coliving management platform needs to be built with customer experience in mind. The problem is that traditional property portals and tools generally treat tenants as a commodity, they help them to find a possible home, then simply hand them over as a lead. What about the rest of the member journey?

The whole process of finding a new home and moving is a naturally stressful time for the customer. What they really want is to be able to look forward to starting a new life in their new home, without having to worry about the paperwork or not knowing who they will be living with. Customers want smoother and more coherent experiences; not to be pushed from pillar to post to get things done, arranging multiple viewings, filling in application forms, reporting maintenance issues, etc. Managers, agencies and landlords need a common place to operate from in order to provide such value-adding, quality experiences.

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How do customers feel about this?

Poor customer experience can make housemates have a negative first impression of the brand, which goes beyond the physical and design aspects of the business. When they are forced to use multiple tools, it can lead to confusion as to which tool should be used for what purpose (i.e. “have to go to app ‘X’ to report a maintenance issue, but website ‘Y’ to report an issue with the tenancy”). This ends up creating inconsistencies and doubt about how the space is managed and ultimately whether a customer is aligned with a coliving brand.

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What's to blame for the lack of attention of customer experience?

For a tech business, it’s a massive and costly undertaking to try and anticipate, then tackle every aspect of a customer journey and create well- connected systems for the complex process of managing a property business; particularly with co-home / HMO / coliving models.

There are lots of innovative proptech solutions solving specific problems such as inventory, finding customers, reporting maintenance, etc. In many of these solutions the focus is specifically on saving the manager/operator time. Often the housemate is an entity in the solution, but is considered collateral, thus being subjected to the system.

Traditional tech companies tend to exert a lot of focus on building one great solution but don’t prepare for changing demands, such as the rapidly changing recognition of the importance of customer experience. As they grow they tend to lose agility and cannot innovate or diversify their products quickly enough to be competitive with other emerging, younger and faster competitors. This approach, as many have discovered, is no longer fit for purpose nor is it future- proof.

Customer experience is also so often neglected in Property Management System (PMS) softwares because it is harder/more expensive/takes longer to develop solutions with great user experience (UX). The manager or operator making the buying decision is often looking at it only through the eyes of the business, considering how much time it can save. They often do not look at it from the perspective of the customer experience.

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It's wonderful when technology works

One of the worst feelings is when you’re forced to use technology that no longer works, and feeling stuck. Finding the right software will help both you and your customer by consistently providing the best customer experience, thus giving them confidence in the service they are getting. By doing so you are strengthening the relationship between your customers and your brand.

As an operator you are empowered with trust and control over your operations and are able to provide a better service at scale. An easy example would be to imagine replacing the need to manually chase acknowledgement of prescribed information (i.e. a digital trail of actions by managers and housemates that negates the need to contact or chase each other) when the customers’ activity is logged. For a more concrete and recent example, we can look at how Airbnb created one single place where a person can go on to book a short term let, and arrange and manage the whole process in a single place. This was transformational in an industry where previously a listing would be found on a website, which would then be followed perhaps by a phone call, then be directed to a website with an application form and finally emailed information on where to go and how to pay.

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Walk a mile in their moccasins

When testing new software, try to experience it wearing your customers’ shoes. Think of the customer experience as an investment when you are building a brand. Think about the relationship you want to have with your tenants in the process, and how you will build a community amongst all of the housemates.

Find a system that allows an integrated user experience so that all parties have clear visibility on everything to do with the journey, making it easier to communicate with each other and keep track of all that needs doing. Use a system that recognises the UX problems of a fragmented toolset and that is designed to alleviate them, such as COHO or Digital Estate, or carefully create and curate a system that has these problems in mind from the start, using tools such as Zapier.

COHO, for example, is designed to bring all the data into one place, creating an ecosystem for all of your operational needs so that your tenants won’t have to give you the same information twice. Logical tasks can be issued and followed up using automation.

Integrating with other best-in-class partners is an important part of the strategy which will mean that you’ll never need to leave the site to get all of the things you need done.

Ultimately, all homes of multiple occupancy should be steered toward a coliving standard. Property managers and landlords should be empowered to provide a better level of service and customer experience. Tech providers and the industry are now working in collaboration to realise this mission together, and the potential for what is to come is inspiring.