5 reasons why you need coliving management software

So you’ve heard that a coliving property management system (PMS) covers the unique areas of coliving operations, but why should you have one?

Well, if your team is manually managing tasks, coliving software streamlines your day-to-day operations. If you’re struggling to find time to focus on guest experience, coliving software delivers best-in-class experience in a few clicks. If you’re looking to grow to new locations or markets, coliving software increases bookings and simplifies scaling. But that’s not all. Based on 15 years experience, here’s the five reasons why you need coliving management software. 

‍Contents

• Greater operational efficiency
• Better guest experience 
• Stronger community 
• Increased bookings
• Easier scaling

1. Greater operational efficiency

Put simply: an all-in-one coliving PMS makes management easier. By automating processes across business functions from one centralised platform, coliving software saves you time and reduces pressure on resources, boosting your productivity by up to 40%. 

• Maintenance - Struggling to manage multiple tasks across multiple sites with multiple maintenance staff? With a coliving PMS, you can oversee planned and preventive maintenance operations remotely. That includes automating maintenance rotas to check equipment, sending digital access keys to electricians, flagging urgent repairs to plumbers and directly communicating with maintenance staff from one platform. 
• Finance - Spending hours manually calculating invoices and sending them to your coliving residents? By incorporating your financial system into a coliving PMS, you can automatically generate and update invoices based on in-stay extras, schedule the sending and chasing of bills, take secure online payments and compile accounting reports with ease. 
• Reporting - Trying to analyse occupancy data from multiple sources? With a coliving PMS, you can view operations data in one simple dashboard, easily spot trends across your portfolio and know what levers to pull to improve performance. 

2. Better guest experience 

Given 40% of hospitality guests write a positive review after a great experience and 81% of potential guests read reviews before booking accommodation, delivering exceptional guest experience is what makes hospitality operators stand out from the crowd. That’s exactly what a coliving PMS does. 

• Pre-stay - Guest experience starts when they first come across your brand. Coliving software issues bespoke quotes with photos and special rates, sends personalised emails tailored with pre-arrival information and offers a range of payment options. It makes a great impression before a guest walks through the door. ‍
• During stay - Put yourself in the shoes of a coliving resident. During your stay, you want frictionless access to amenities, but privacy to your own spaces. You want to check out and sign up for upcoming community activities with ease. You want to extend your stay with a touch of a button, not filling out a complicated form. All of this is made possible with a coliving PMS.‍
• Post stay - Roll out the red carpet for future bookings. A coliving CRM system builds guest profiles and preferences, so you can offer a personalised experience during their next stay, and send automated emails with discounts tailored to what each guest likes. ‍

3. Stronger community 

With the essence of coliving being community - unhappy residents lead to churn whilst a thriving community strengthens retention. The success of your coliving business hinges on how you curate community, and a coliving PMS is specifically designed to build your ideal community without limitations. 

• Like-minded individuals - It’s important that you attract the right blend of residents to your community. By advertising far and wide on various sales channels, with photos, rates and highlights, a channel manager entices your ideal guest and improves resident vetting too. 
• Community events - Although communities can grow organically, don’t hedge your bets on this when you open doors to new residents. Instead, use a coliving PMS to create the conditions for growth. Employ a guest portal feature to host social activities, such as pilates classes and film nights, and allow guests to create their own events, such as dance evenings and dinner clubs. Enabling residents to message each other encourages friendships and takes the pressure off management, whilst making residents feel supported. 
• Seamless access - You can’t build a community with locked doors. Integrate access control to better manage your spaces. You can easily set access to communal areas (i.e. no entry to the spa between 9pm-6am) and limit access to private spaces, such as bedrooms. 

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‍4. Increased bookings

Whether short-term or long-term, taking bookings is a fundamental part of the coliving game. A synchronised online booking system simplifies bookings, even if guests discover your property via an online channel, and works across smartphones, tablets and computers. 

• Conversion - Coliving is inherently a personal experience. An on-site branded booking portal with simple pricing and a secure payments system encourages guests to ‘book now, not later’. 
• Synchronicity - Never worry again about double bookings, human or pricing errors. A coliving PMS synchronises your availability calendar with all channels, so a booking made on one site immediately updates listings on all the other channels. 
• Dynamic pricing - Pricing your rooms is difficult, so let a digital tool do it for you. Dynamic pricing determines best rates according to competitor prices, seasonal demand & supply variations, and regional occupancy levels. It automatically changes rates across all channels so you don’t have to and minimises voids by using ‘gap fillers’ to reduce rates for ‘in between’ booking.‍

5. Easier scaling 

According to Savills, the UK coliving market is poised for “huge growth” with the total operational and future pipeline standing at 24,000 units. By making it easier to scale, a coliving PMS helps your coliving business take advantage of these positive conditions. What’s more, coliving PMS features are specifically designed for the industry, unlike hotel-centred PMS where only a few upgrades will be useful to you. 

• Multiple sites - No matter the building size, no matter the location, you can manage operations across multiple sites remotely. This opens up a whole new avenue of scaling opportunities as one property manager can oversee housekeeping, maintenance, sustainability and safety compliance across all sites. 
• International expansion - Manage an international portfolio easier by translating communication into different languages (i.e. for maintenance staff or guests), updating apartment rates in multiple currencies to market units to a local audience, and understanding different international taxes. 
• Internal training - As a centralised coliving property management system is easy-to-use and accessible from anywhere, it’s easier to train new hires as you grow (each property manager only needs to learn how to use one piece of technology). 

‍More revenue

Be it maximising occupancy or increasing conversion, encouraging longer-term stays or reducing operational costs, a coliving PMS is a low-margin tool with a high-margin impact. 

Bringing together 15 years’ experience of running hospitality operations with unique coliving know-how, res:harmonics coliving PMS is your one-way ticket to growth. 

Download the Ultimate Guide to Coliving Management Software 2023 to learn how property management software supports coliving operators.

‍Request a demo to find out more.