Close your eyes. Imagine if you will, a world in which there are no physical keys, fobs or key cards to manage for your members. A new member joins – you grant access with a couple of taps on your phone.
…Now the dream starts shifting into a nightmare…A member loses a fob in the parking lot and an ill-intentioned passer-by finds it and uses it to enter in the middle of the night and walk out with a few hard drives…Oh wait! That nightmare is no longer possible with smart locks!
Keep closing your eyes… It’s Saturday and you have an appointment with the carpet cleaners at your space. But your kid has a baseball game at the same time. No need to miss family time! Grant the carpet cleaner access to the space via his smartphone for a specific time slot.
Technology is making life easier for your members as well as for YOU!
As the flexible office industry continues to evolve and the “consumerization of work” keeps workspace providers on their toes, operators are looking for ways to improve the member experience while at the same time leveraging technology to simplify operations.
Smart locks fall into this category.
Benefits of smart locks:
Smart locks can allow coworking space owners to:
- Easily manage access to their locations remotely
- Block access
- View entry activity
- Receive activity messages on a smartphone
- Grant access to visitors, employees, or even delivery services
Generally, coworking space operators are looking for an out-of-the-box solution that meets the following requirements:
- A quick-start solution
- Cloud-based access control
- Ability to open a door remotely, from anywhere
- Ability to control access and time of access
- Ability to view door activity and receive activity messages on a smart phone
- A turnkey software solution
- A network of trained and certified software installers
As covered in the list of Coworking Tools and Service Providers 2017, shared workspaces of all sizes leverage various tools to better manage their space and provide a competitive member experience. That’s why coworking space owners might not only need an out-of-the-box solution for access control but also options to integrate with their existing coworking tools such as booking/ reservation tools, community engagement tools, space management tools and more.
One provider of smart locks is SALTO Keys as a Service (KS). Their platform allows any data entered into an existing coworking tool related to users, rooms or time-frame, to automatically be converted to access rules in SALTO KS. So there’s no duplication of work!
Other benefits of connecting your access control system to your existing coworking tools such as booking/ reservation tools or community engagement:
- Push lock events to your coworking tools
- Send customized welcome messages to new members or visitors
- Automatically invoice booking extensions
The Clay Locking Platform is for the user that requires customization such as:
- Customized user interface; either a custom-built access control app or integration into existing app
- Optimization of internal tools, such as booking/ reservation tool
- Access management of all locations from one place
- Synchronized user data, to avoid duplication of work
- Granting or blocking access for guests or customers via your own app, from anywhere, anytime (Mobile key feature)
Take a look at how Regus improved its customer experience with Clay Locking Platform.
Thank you to Salto KS/Clay for contributing to this post. We look forward to introducing them in person to attendees at the 2017 GWA Conference in Miami!
