Letting agencies: How HelloNeighbour used KeyNest to expand their lettings operations

HelloNeighbour is an innovative, tech-led lettings agency focused on doing things fairly and transparently for all parties.

They have built the business & platform from base principles, tackling problems with a fresh perspective, using tech and data to drive efficiency and deliver exceptional customer service.

They are delivering a true ecosystem for landlords and tenants to manage all their home letting needs either independently or with as much support as needed, and they are growing fast!

How to grow a tech-based lettings agency at scale?

Richard Jenkins, the co-founder of HelloNeighbour, talks about the beginning of the journey:

“We officially launched in April last year and we just kept on hitting record months since then. We've got hundreds of new landlords joining the platform every month at the moment, which is great.”

With a small team and big growth plans, Richard knew he needed a solution to help him manage the keys to properties remotely and at scale, and that manual key pickups were not a way to manage his growing enterprise:

“When we started, we handled the first lettings listings manually: we passed the keys in-person, did viewings by ourselves etc. We tried using lockboxes, but it wasn’t ideal. We knew that to make the business leaner and be able to operate in various locations throughout the UK, we needed to find an automated and scalable solution. That’s why we turned to KeyNest Points right away.”

A key access solution used by every employee of the agency:

Richard mentions that using KeyNest Points just made a lot of sense and answered the needs of a fast-growing company like HelloNeighbour. He praises the simplicity of the implementation, which took just a couple of minutes of onboarding and then dropping a key in a local KeyNest Point.

“We now have the whole team using KeyNest. From the Sales Team to the Account Management team that deals with the tenant match and move-in-process and the Customer Happiness team, who deal with booking the keys to make sure they're available whenever needed.

And then we've got viewing agents picking up the keys from Points daily as well as cleaners, inventory and maintenance staff. So several different people in the organisation need to access the keys and have to drop them off using KeyNest - and because the whole system is simple to understand and use, I don’t have to worry about managing the keys in a manual way ever again.”

Day-to-day use of KeyNest in a tech lettings business:

Richard mentions that the experience with KeyNest Points has been excellent, and the one time when he needed to get involved in a problematic situation, it got resolved quickly.

“I remember one case when there was a minor miscommunication about a key status. KeyNest Customer Care got involved right away and solved the case in minutes. And to be fair, the Customer Service at KeyNest has been generally great. They are knowledgeable and know how to solve operational problems quickly.”

Richard ends the story about KeyNest with a highlight of the importance of this solution for companies like his. He claims it’s hard to be a fast-growing brand and grow at scale without a dependable partner in operations, like KeyNest.

“It's a fundamental part of the business and a cornerstone of how we can do what we do. “