In an ever-evolving market where coliving technology tools have a direct impact on your KPIs, designing a robust coliving technology strategy is a determinant factor on the success of your business. That said the complex network of existing PMS, CRM and BMS providers, makes it hard to identify technology vendors, and elect those that suis your business needs. On this short guide we’ll make it a bit easier.
Understanding the different tools
Before delving into the main technology providers, it is important to understand the specific needs that coliving spaces have, and how they differ from other hospitality/real estate industries. For example, while hotel PMSs are designed to mostly handle short stays, and residential software focuses on single-payment long-term agreements, a coliving software must be able to manage flexible mid-terms stays and recurring automated billing.
But what is a PMS? A Property Management System, is the central software of coliving space’s technology strategy, organising and automating the daily operations of an asset. Technology companies such as MonkSpaces.AI, Mews, Cloudbeds, Bidrento, or Res:harmonics provide software that manages bookings, room allocation and real time room availability across booking websites such as Airbnb, Bookin.com, BookMyColiving, or Colivin.com.
With this kind of software you can enhance user experience by reducing easing check-in and check-out processes, removing payment and invoicing frictions, or by centralising guests’ details and preferences, allowing you to better manage your community. In addition, it maximises maintenance and facility management efficiency allowing guests to submit maintenance issues via a tenant app, and by directly assigning tickets to staff or outsourced vendors. With the incorporation of AI, it also suggests dynamic rent adjustments according to seasonal trends and local demand, and provides AI chatbots to handle resident FAQs.
A Costumer Relationship Manager (CRM) handles lead generation and nurturing. It manages leads by aggregating them into a single channel and organising them based on move-in date, stay duration and budget. It also allows potential clients to book tours, and manages the sales pipeline by, for example, sending an application form or a personalised offer after the tour is done, and even schedules follow-ups. Tools like those provided by Nexudus or Zoho help you to track marketing KPIs like the cost per acquisition, evaluate the sales team performance, and identify possible bottlenecks in your sales pipeline.
In a coliving space where facilities range from bedrooms, to meeting rooms, events spaces, and common areas, a system of traditional mechanical keys usually becomes very inefficient and time consuming to work with. The obvious step is to go with a physical solution akin to those of hotels where a small plastic card unlocks the door to your room. However, vendors like SALTO, Stid, or Kisi, provide more suitable tailored electronic access control solutions.
Why is that? For one, you can integrate it with your PMS and CRM of choice. This means that, if a resident’s contract is renewed, ends, or is upgraded to access more areas in the coliving space, SALTO will automatically update that client’s access to and within the coliving. On the other hand, it also eliminates the need for physical cards that can be lost, demagnetised, or just eventually need to be replaced by new ones.
For payment handling, you might want to opt to go with a software such as Stripe. This will be especially advantageous if your guests are mostly expats and digital nomads, as it can promptly process international payments, at a fee. Another viable option is GoCardless which, despite not providing worldwide coverage, allows you to collect recurring payments swiftly, by minimising credit card failures, with much smaller fees than Stripe.
Finally, an accounting software is normally also included in a coliving technology strategy. A single channel that allows you to manage finances, invoice customers, track expenses and cash flow, and record payments will save you time and increase accuracy, when compared to resorting to Excel sheets to manage your books. Providers like Quickbooks and Xero can be integrated with your PMS, and your payment handling software creating a three-way integration. This way when a resident pays rent, Stripe or GoCarldles process thee transaction, the PMS records that client’s room as “rent paid”, and the accounting tool automatically reconciles the payout against the bank feed, logs the revenue account, and isolates the processing fee without manual data entry.
The right fit for you
The real challenge when designing a coliving technology strategy is to identify which providers best adapt to the needs of your project: the space’s physical layout and size, the niche you wish to explore, the kind of community you wish to foster, and even the local context – all of these must be taken into consideration.
A coliving technology strategy, must allow you to holistically manage your business – this is to say, it must enable the automation and digitalisation of Facility Management, Operations Management, and Community Management.
For this end, the first step is to identify the tools that will make part of the coliving technology strategy. While a PMS, a CRM, or an Accounting tool are “non-negotiables”, a Perks Management Tool, or a Printer Management Systems might not be needed, depending on the kind of project you want to create.
After that, you will want to identify every single provider that operates in the area of the world where your business is located, and see how well they adapt to your needs. In order to assess what sets them apart from each other there are three key aspects to take into consideration:
- Key strengths: what does each tool offer that adds value to your business that others don’t?
- Key weaknesses: what does this tool lack in relation to others that could add more value to your business?
- Integrations: Can this tool be integrated with other tools natively, or does it require a custom integration that will increase its implementation cost?
At this point you will be ready to shortlist two to three providers that are good fits for your coliving technology strategy, and you are ready to ask each of them for a demo of thee tool. You will also have the chance to confirm pricing and available integrations.
Final Notes
When developing your coliving technology strategy, there are factors that you should look out for, integrations being one of them. Different Property Management Systems can be automatically integrated with different providers, while they require customisation to be integrated with others. If that’s the case, this can significantly raise the implementation cost off your technology strategy.
Be on the lookout for hidden fees. Besides the normal monthly or yearly subscription and the installation cost, some providers will charge you for the import of your data into the software, or even for mandatory training for new users. Once you add all of these up, the final pricing may end up being considerably higher than the initial fee you were expecting.
And finally, a coliving technology strategy is designed to automate operations, generate revenue, improve accuracy, and elevate the Resident Experience for your members. It must not be designed to replace human interaction between staff and guests. Especially in an environment where community, human interaction, and creating real bonds with and between members is of utmost importance to the Resident Experience.