Co-living: How KeyNest empowered Habyt to digitalise and automate their global operations
Habyt is the world's leading co-living provider, based in Berlin and with locations in over 40 cities and 14 countries, across three continents.
Habyt’s 30,000+ units vary from co-living, studios and traditional rental apartments. The company offers rentals in fully-furnished, private rooms and apartments with an all-inclusive concept (with bills included and additional services for tenants available).
Habyt continues to seek opportunities in new markets and to enable people to live effortlessly and flexibly anywhere across the globe. 2022 brought a merger of Habyt and H’mlet, the biggest Asia Pacific co-living company, and the expansion of Habyt’s operations in the new cities in APAC. January 2023 brought exciting news about the merger of Habyt and Common, the largest co-living operator in North America - the combined entity brings to life a next generation of living concepts operating worldwide.
With the eyes and hands of Habyt’s team strongly focused on improving the customer and tenant rental journey, the company’s operations are powered by innovative tech solutions, which deliver a frictionless experience.
Habyt’s global expansion of digital operations
What it practically translates into is a fully digitalised, paperless booking process for tenants and guests. The digital approach continues as the guest moves in, with the communication channels and additional services also available at a click of a button.
Vincent Shenk, Habyt’s VP of Global Operations, mentions that the company constantly continues to grow:
“When we started in 2017, we were operating just a few apartments across Berlin. And now, by the end of 2022, we are present in multiple European and Asian cities, and have achieved 10x growth over the last 12 months.”
Introducing the new quality of check-ins
A couple of years ago, as the company started to expand into new locations, the team realised that one of the final stages of the guest experience which was still done manually was the key exchange during check-ins and check-outs. The keys were passed by Habyt’s team members in the main office, which was not ideal.
Tenants, cleaners and contractor providers had to pick up keys from the company’s headquarters every time they needed access - making it, at times, quite a detour. After brief market research, Habyt’s team discovered the remote key exchange service offered by KeyNest and decided to give it a try.
The first cities that got set up a remote key exchange with KeyNest were Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt. KeyNest Points (convenience stores, petrol stations or cafes offering key storage and exchange services) were already set up near Habyt’s properties, so introducing this new service was practically instantaneous. The process included moving Habyt’s property keys to specific KeyNest Points, securing some additional key copies when needed, and training the team on how to use the solution via the desktop portal and app.
“In our smaller destinations, like Modena in Italy, there were no KeyNest Points available, so we requested for the locations to be opened specially for the needs of Habyt’s operations. I was frankly quite surprised by how quickly they were created. Whenever requested, I saw new Points being ready for us to use within a week or two. I find this to be one of the core advantages of KeyNest: being fully flexible and responsive. Introducing KeyNest Points service was a game changer for our operations.”
- says Schenk
KeyNest offers 24/7 customer service in multiple languages - which matches Habyt’s international presence. With keys to thousands of properties exchanged each month, there is always a chance that something might not go as planned - but with real-time chat support and a hotline, KeyNest keeps these cases under control.
How has the experience with KeyNest been so far?
When asked about the general impression of the service so far, Schenk lights up:
“It’s been very proactive, flexible and fast. My team appreciates how open the KeyNest team is when hearing about our ideas to adjust existing services according to specific market needs. Everyone is extremely hands-on and keen to help us succeed in current and new cities - the instant replies and solutions to even the smallest issues make the team at Habyt fully comfortable about handling the keys remotely.
It's not just a one-way street - as businesses, we grow together. I think the strength of the collaboration comes from trusting each other and improving the processes in a way that is scalable for both sides. “
