“The greatest thing in this work is the combination of two important elements: people and technology. So that innovative thinking helps create something better than before, give added value and bring improvements to residents’ lives. In a nutshell: how to make everyday life better by means of technology.”

The digital services closest to residents of Lumo homes are probably the Lumo webstore and the My Lumo service.

“Lumo webstore is a pioneering effort, other operators don’t yet have anything comparable. The aim is to improve the customer experience continuously both in the webstore and the My Lumo service, but this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Harra-Salonen says.

She points out that, behind the scenes, a lot of work that is not always visible to customers goes on to influence the customer experience. Digitalisation is an excellent tool in this type of work as well.

“It is important for us to invest in the employee experience. When we make the work of Lumo home employees and our partners easier and more convenient, service quality improves. For example, we consider what kind of technology could be utilised in property management in the future, or what kind of tools our employees would need on the move when their job is to show apartments to residents. Countless possibilities arise when all our operations are reviewed.”

New technology is also introduced to new Lumo houses, both for overall property management and the actual homes.

“Smart homes are the order of the day in many ways and, in fact, smartphones have already introduced many new features to managing the home – features we could not even imagine before,” Harra-Salonen points out.

She is a visionary, viewing technology as the facilitator of visions. In her opinion, residents’ residential path can be digitalised throughout to make it better than before and provide better services. The key issue is to implement this seamlessly with the in-house staff while listening closely to customers, so that they get the service they need in the format they prefer. Thorough data analysis contributes to reaching this end.

“Ample data is created automatically for us, throughout the organisation. When we analyse and utilise it carefully, we can develop our operations and services further and make them even better. We listen to our customers this way as well.”

During the spring, Harra-Salonen and her team prepared a digital roadmap for the next three years. Its implementation has now started. The CDO has two important messages for residents about this.

“I urge everyone who is not familiar with them yet to try out our different digital services. Technology is a great opportunity and there is no need to be afraid of it. The second message is: give us feedback and ideas, we really want to hear them and appreciate them all.”