Avain Asunnot launched One4all’s living as a service platform as Kotiavain
Digitization is present in housing and the needs of residents have changed from before. Residents need easily accessible services and up-to-date information related to their own housing. That’s why Avain Asunnot decided to centralize resident communication in one digital service and in April 2023 switched to using One4all’s living as a service platform launched under the name Kotiavain (which means home key) in all its properties, at the same time giving up their extranet for residents.
“The solution was based on an actual need,” says Avain Asunto’s Sales and Marketing Director Elias Kiviranta.
“We realized that we needed a service where we could focus all our resident communication, and which could also act as a certain kind of hub for all our housing services. We first mapped out the construction of our own system and also familiarized ourselves with competing services, but we ended up with One4all’s service, because we were already familiar with it and we knew that the service would also constantly develop.”
Familiar and reliable service provider One4all
For Avain Asunnot the first contact with One4all’s housing service platform was in the early stages of the construction of Kruunuvuorenranta in 2018, after which it has been piloted in several new Avain Asunnot construction projects. According to Elias, the decision to centralize the service and build Kotiavain on the existing One4all housing service platform was based on good experiences with the service.
“Electronic services are constantly being developed and promoted at Avain. That’s why it seemed like a justified solution to choose an external service provider, One4all, which already has a specialized service that can be profiled for your own use.
A reliable and good operator, whose priority is to constantly develop and diversify the service, also enables joint development work.
We, like our residents, are just learning how to use the service and its various features. We are constantly learning more about the possibilities of the service platform as well as the needs of the residents, and we want to continuously develop the service based on them,” continues Elias.
Rid of house-specific websites – towards uniform communication
Almost 20,000 residents live in Avain Asunnot’s properties. There are currently 366 properties ready, some of which are rental properties and some are right-of-occupancy properties. In addition, there are twenty new sites under construction, with a total of more than 1,200 apartments. All Avain Asunnot residents are united by the need and right to receive up-to-date information related to their own housing. Avain Asunnot previously used house-specific websites, which were tedious and difficult to update. Using the site was also difficult for the residents, and the site did not have all the needed functions.
By launching the Kotiavain service in all its properties in April 2023, Avain Asunnot gave up all of its housing association-specific homepages and focused all its residents onto one service; One4all’s housing service platform.
In Kotiavain, residents can now easily see and read current bulletins, messages from the housing management and maintenance, as well as residents’ committee publications – either through the application or the browser. It is particularly important, especially for ASO residents, that they have access to statutory reports and documents.
Different groups of residents have slightly different views and different functions, but the general set of services is uniform for all residents. In some properties, Kotiavain also includes an electronic booking calendar, from which residents can reserve the housing association’s common spaces and services.
Kotiavain is the answer to residents’ needs
The implementation of the unified housing service platform in all locations and the launch of the application Kotiavain has been a large project that has required a lot of planning and commitment to implementation.
Avani Asunnot Customer Service Manager Marjo Paulin’s task has been to take care of how Kotiavain is launched to the residents. In her work, she tries to look at the whole through the resident’s eyes and thinks about what all must be taken into account from the resident’s point of view.
Marjo has been responsible for the messages sent to the residents. She has also ensured that all the necessary information and instructions are available to the residents. The whole has been very diverse, because different groups of residents have been communicated to about different things, depending on e.g. whether it is a rental property or an ASO property.
Residents who are part of the residents’ committee have also prepared their own information messages and created user IDs with which they can manage and communicate in the building society on behalf of the residents’ committee to the residents.
“Residents’ committees play a big role in Avain Asunnot’s properties in building the sense of community in housing associations and in organizing the joint activities of the residents, so it is important that they have effective tools for communication,” Marjo emphasizes.
Consistent communication models for high-quality resident communication in all locations
Along with the residents’ committee, the properties’ housing management service and maintenance company are mainly responsible for the contents of Kotiavain. Marjo has gone through the Kotiavain complex with Avain Asunnot’s real estate unit and the hosting of the sites, familiarizing them and mapping common, functioning communication models.
“In the end, publishing current and house-specific information to Kotiavain is part of their job, and therefore defining a uniform communication method is a very important part of the implementation process of Kotiavain. The goal is to ensure that all residents of Avain Asunnot have access to the same high-quality resident communication,” says Marjo.
Digitality enables sustainable operations
In the long run Avain Asunnot hopes to get rid of unnecessary paper prints and the emissions caused by transporting them.
“It remains to be seen at what point it will be possible to completely stop printing paper bulletins per resident or distribute only one paper bulletin per stairwell,” Marjo thinks.
“The decision will then be well thought out. First we have to monitor the user numbers of the service in order to know how and how actively the residents use Kotiavain. Decisions are based on the collected data, in addition to which the residents’ wishes must also be heard separately,” she continues.
Positive feedback from the residents
After the implementation was completed in April, residents have already been sent two feedback surveys about the use of the service. Of the nearly 500 respondents who answered the surveys, the majority rated Kotiavain as extremely good or very good, but there is always room for improvement, of course.
“Resident surveys will continue to be carried out regularly in order to know what the residents think and what features they may have missed,” says Marjo.
Kotiavain develops according to the needs of the residents and housing
The Kotiavain story is just beginning, and following implementation, the service will be developed jointly with One4all. Already at this stage, the desired change needs have been included in the system’s development list and onto implementation
“Now that technically high-quality tools are available, Avain wants to learn how to utilize them as versatilely and efficiently as possible. This is where the actual planning and development work begins,” says Marjo with a smile.
“Kotiavain will be the first and hopefully also the most desired channel for residents to receive information. That’s why we want to centralize the operations and really invest in it”, Elias sums up.
Featured in the article photo: Robert Brandt and Marjo Paulin / Avain Asunnot, Mikko Määttä and Kitte Hamilton / One4all.