Co-construction of Check-In Online with Keylodge
Find out how the concrete needs of a property manager allowed us to develop a new feature in Yaago that we named Check-in Online.

We have been working closely with Keylodge, a property management agency based on Reunion Island, for 3 months now, on the development of a new feature. We wanted to present and tell you about the genesis of this new Yaago feature and who better than Romain Desvignes, CEO of Keylodge, to talk about it with us?
Discover, through this interview, how the co-construction with one of our customers allowed us to develop a new feature in Yaago: Check-in Online.
A feature that all travelers are now used to seeing and using in airline or hotel mobile applications. Its goal: to make the arrival of travelers even more fluid and to make each booking even more secure, thus making managers more serene.

Hello Romain, thank you for accepting this exchange, can you please introduce Keylodge and yourself to our readers?
Hello, you’re welcome. We founded Keylodge in 2019. In 3 years, we have gone from a single managed accommodation with 0 employees to 150 managed accommodations and 40 employees. Our specificity, perhaps, was this desire to internalize everything from the start: marketing, finance, maintenance staff, housekeeper, maintenance department, revenue management.
And therefore control everything. We attach great importance to the structuring of processes. At the very beginning of the activity, we worked a lot on our offers to owners and travelers.
Then once this solid foundation was in place, we built solid work processes around the supply chain.

When you started testing Yaago, we talked together about Keylodge’s needs. You liked our Pre Check-In, but something was missing:
In the first quarter of 2022, we have indeed explored many avenues to cover these needs related to the traveler experience and the security of stays:
- competing solutions
- multiplication of applications to cover everything
- questioning about internal development
Then we discovered Yaago and started using it to cover our first needs:
- the welcome booklet of course
- the implementation of more developed guest communication with automatic messages
- sharing of Igloohome codes (access solution that we were already using)
- chat with our guests
But we still had to solve problems related to the inventory and online check-in.
Can you tell us more about this part?
As a manager, we make a promise to owners: we take care of their accommodation, see who rents it to and in what condition the accommodation is left after each stay.
All managers who will read your article know that these are crucial parts of our job. And since we like to have rigorous work processes, we have sought to define one for this part.
The inventory is not mandatory in short-term rentals, but the absence of an inventory can be detrimental, if a traveler takes advantage of this vagueness. Unfortunately, we have experienced this, but it will have allowed us to fill our gaps by shielding our general conditions and going further in our processes.
Now thanks to Yaago, we cover all the important steps.
Travelers are given the opportunity, thanks to the inventory feature, to report the slightest anomaly on arrival and departure. If it does not report anything, it is considered that no problem is present. This feature is very popular with travelers, who feel reassured to have this ability to report anything.
Then, we require all our travelers to go through this new Check-In Online feature, which allows us to collect their identity document, contact details and have them sign our general conditions of sale electronically.
.

For us the advantages of Check-In Online are clear:
- In the case of noise pollution in one of our accommodations, if the police intervene, we now have all the necessary identity elements of the traveler, to share with the police.
- Despite 3D Secure technology, we still have some chargeback situations on payments, due to customer objections. By collecting information and identity documents, we can expand our files and better protect ourselves..
- We sometimes had unwanted uses of our accommodation, too many people for the capacity of the accommodation, party or evening project in the accommodation. We found that these new steps imposed, encouraged some to finally change their minds and cancel their booking.
- Among the steps of Check-In Online, we also ask guests for their check-in and check-out times. Having this information is very important for us and our staff.
Because we only give access to accommodation to travelers who have completed all these steps and paid their security deposit.
The benefits are twofold, because being able to explain this process to owners allows us to reassure them and therefore more easily seduce them.
.

Some managers are reluctant to set up this kind of process and especially to impose it on their travelers. Can you tell us about the adoption rate among your travellers?
As I told you previously, we impose this process on all our travelers. And the reception is positive. The important thing is to clearly present these steps and explain them.
Which ultimately allows it to be seen as a service, such as the possibility for the traveler to make his inventory for example.

To date, we have registered 2086 Online Check-Ins with this new Yaago feature.
We are coming to the end of this discussion. On our side, we are proud to have been able to build this functionality with you and to make it available to all our Premium users. This is in line with the professionalization of our industry.
To conclude, would you like to share a feedback with the other managers who will read you?
I am going to repeat myself, but working on your work processes is essential, it is the keystone of the development of the company, on all aspects. This will allow you to automate later and bring peace of mind.
Another important thing: in 3 years, we have tested a lot of tools, we have often changed tools.
The conclusion: there is no perfect tool. It does not matter in itself, you just have to be aware of it and not stop at this observation. You have to take those that come closest to your needs, maybe adapt to them. And if you have the will and the ability like us, develop your own tools to cover certain needs.
Thank you very much Romain for taking the time to come back with us on these last months of collaboration which led to the launch of Check-In Online.
And thank you for your very enriching sharing for all the managers who will read you.
With pleasure and thank you to Yaago for his accompaniment!
Do you also want to offer an unparalleled travel experience while mastering all the tasks related to the management of your stays? Request a demo to take advantage of Yaago’s free trial period
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