This thesis has been assigned by Sivakka, the largest rental house company in the Oulu region, for whom the author has completed his professional training in the summer of 2021 and has since worked as a part-time service expert. Sivakka manages an estimated total of 8 300 rental apartments in different areas of the Oulu region and the company offers its tenants a variety of products and services known as tenant benefits. These benefits are, for example, designed to improve the quality of the apartments and also to add to the satisfaction regarding living in the said apartment. In addition to tenant benefits, often times during a tenancy, a need for other products and services connected to living, such as additional apartment keys or apartment decorating, emerges.

The main objective of this thesis was to investigate if a separate online store would be an appropriate way of both offering and managing these products and services mentioned above. In order to find out the tenants’ opinion on the matter, an online survey was conducted among selected properties managed by Sivakka. The goal of the survey was to find out whether the residents of Sivakka rental apartments would consider using an online store and if they would view it as a useful addition to the web of digital services already offered by Sivakka. Information regarding their use of other digital services and the development of Sivakka digital services were also gathered as part of the survey. Additionally, this thesis also takes a look at the connection between digitalization, online stores and digital customer experience. Different online store platforms are also itemized through previous research material. Their technical features and possible connections with systems already used by Sivakka have been, however, narrowed out from this thesis.

The results and the given answers of the survey were quite similar with one another and no major differences among the group of respondents appeared. A percentage of 43,1 favored the concept of Sivakka opening an online store for the products and services mentioned above. As a whole, it would appear that the respondents consider digital services to be an essential part of their customer experience and contacting different parties, but larger innovations focusing on it are met with more care and caution. According to the survey, alternative channels of communication should not be disregarded in favor of their digital opposites.

The theory of this thesis is stitched together to the information gathered by the author during the professional training and later employment relationship. The source material of this thesis is mainly formed by written field-focused works, the material provided for the author for internal use by Sivakka and earlier researches conducted by different parties.