Making corporate housing management a breeze with Nesto
What is Nesto?
Nesto (app.gonesto.com) is a B2B SaaS application that helps seamlessly bring together relocation managers, employees/tenants, and property suppliers in the corporate housing management industry.
My Role
End-to-end design and handoff of the individual apps for relocation managers, employees, and suppliers, and an internal accounts management app
Design and maintenance of a scalable design system
The Team
Remote across 5 countries and 3 timezones
Product managers, engineers, marketing managers, investors, and me!
The Market
European Union - Luxembourg, Netherlands & France
Plans of expanding to other countries and continents
My work with Nesto falls under a non-disclosure agreement, but you can keep scrolling to get a quick sneak peek at a few things I worked on!
The Corporate Housing Industry
In many companies across the world, the company provides employees with accommodation in instances of relocation assistance, internships, or business trips. This process involves many people, various parameters, budget constraints, and a lot of information handling, especially when there is a large number of relocations to be managed.
The People Involved
The corporate housing process currently has 3 main stakeholders:
Employees
Employees relocating for work share personal needs and approve suitable properties for themselves and their family.
“When I am looking to relocate for work,
I want to clearly express my needs and property approvals to my company,
so I can have a comfortable stay.”
Relocation Managers / HR
Managers coordinate the process end-to-end, maintain communications, and make bookings.
“When I receive a relocation request for an employee,
I want to have all relocation information and communications well-organized,
so I can provide quick services and take on more relocations.”
Property Suppliers
Suppliers upload and manage properties for relocations, aiming to grow and expand.
“When I receive a request for accommodation from a relocation manager,
I want to present properties most relevant to that relocation quickly,
so I can receive more bookings and grow my business.”
The Current State of Affairs
The current process does not use any specific tools, making it lengthy and tedious:
Tools
Existing Corporate Housing software
Property Suppliers’ websites
Excel / Google Sheets
Forms
Slack
Other communication tools
Payment gateways
Information Handled
Tools Used
Property requirements
Company budgets
List of properties
Approved properties
Shortlisted property
Property availability
Payment details
Booking details
Contact details
The Problem
With limited corporate housing tools available currently, the process is distributed across many tools and stakeholders, making it:
Inefficient
Fragmented
Difficult to scale
This is where Nesto steps in.
Nesto brings all stakeholders together on the platform, significantly simplifying the process:
Tools
Nesto
Other communication tools
Payment gateways
Information Handled
Tools Used
Property requirements
Company budgets
List of properties
Approved properties
Shortlisted property
Property availability
Payment details
Booking details
Contact details
With Nesto, the corporate housing management process is:
Fast
Not having to coordinate across different tools and platforms makes every relocation quicker by at least a few folds.
Collaborative
By bringing all people involved in the process onto the same platform, Nesto eliminates the need to coordinate different tasks on different tools.
Well Documented
All relocation details from start to end are available at users’ fingertips on Nesto at any stage of the process.
Scalable
Nesto allows both relocation managers and suppliers to easily increase their scale of operations.
Current Global Market
The market currently has only one direct competitor for Nesto, so we also used some indirect competitors for benchmarking. Here are a few of them:
Some pros and cons I gathered from studying competitor products:
Competitors like AltoVita and Blueground have an already existing wide range of trusted property suppliers on their platform
All competitors lack live data on the availability of properties
Most platforms are not tailored to the corporate market
Early Feedback For Nesto
We soft launched the Nesto app for two companies, starting with an online demo given by Nesto’s marketing team, followed by our first official bookings made by the companies. Feedback was collected periodically over video calls as well as through a bug reporting tool.
Every round of feedback was followed by quick iterations facilitated by sprints and co-creation sessions along with the product manager and the engineering team.
Based on the feedback from this early testing, Nesto was found to be significantly better in terms of design, ease of use and functionality than existing tools and methods.
Nesto also underwent constant guerrilla testing with Arca Properties, Nesto’s main investor company. This served as another major source of feedback.
The Three Faces Of Nesto
We worked on 3 apps for the different users:
Relocation Manager App
Relocation Managers can create and manage relocations, browse properties, share property lists, send inquiries, handle communications and make bookings for various relocations.
Employee App
Employees can provide their requirements and preferences, shortlist properties they like and ultimately choose a property that works best for them.
Property Supplier App
Property Suppliers can upload and manage properties on Nesto, view and manage bookings, get an overview of their revenue on Nesto and other metrics, and tend to inquiries.
Relocation Manager and Employee Apps
The relocation manager app and the employee app are very similar, apart from some added functionalities catered towards relocation managers.
Relocations List Page: The Relocation Manager app makes creating and managing relocations super efficient, using various tools and formats.
Individual Relocation Page: Managers can shortlist properties for every relocation, and see availability updates in real-time.
While making the product functional was a priority, we also considered it essential to add delight and make this information-heavy process smoother.
Individual Relocation Page > Filters: A major point of concern for employees, when deciding on a stay, is the distance of the stay from their office. Nesto allows users to use this as a parameter when looking for the perfect stay.
Individual Property Page: Property pages give relocation managers and employees a clear overview of the property along with details relevant to that specific relocation, like travel time from the property to office.
Booking Flow: Nesto’s booking process is not only quick and concise, but also transparent, keeping the user’s trust and comfort a top priority.
Browse Page: The Browse page allows managers to look at all the properties Nesto has to offer without the constraints of creating a relocation.
Property Supplier App
The Property Supplier app caters to the needs of suppliers who own one or more properties and want to expand their business through Nesto.
Dashboard: The Supplier app dashboard gives suppliers a clear view of updates that need their attention, and a quick overview of their bookings and revenue.
While designing at Nesto, I studied the nitty-gritties of the process, figuring out the tiniest points of friction for every user and ideating various designs to alleviate that friction.
Individual Property Page > Booked: The Booked Property page gives Suppliers a quick and clear overview of all the required booking details, as well as the revenue breakdown and an invoice.
Bookings Page: The Supplier app makes managing hundreds of bookings a breeze and uses revenue metrics as an incentive for suppliers to expand their business on Nesto.
Add Property Flow: Uploading properties is a lengthy and heavy task, but the Nesto app breaks it down to smaller bits for lower cognitive loads, and also tops it off with some tools that property suppliers could find handy.
Wrapping Up
Nesto is now live and working with early customers to continuously make the experience of corporate housing management better with each day.
Being the sole designer on the team, I spent my time not just designing, but also researching user patterns, strategizing for balance between the best user experience and business goals, and incorporating the best practices and trends.
Working on Nesto has opened up a whole new realm for me, helping me expand my skillset in design, strategy, collaboration and communication!
That’s about it for the Nesto app, but there’s more!
Check out how I picked up the best bits of the Nesto app to create a marketing landing page that we could use to attract potential customers!