Key box manufactured with and for a local estate agent...

New Better Key Cabinet in the Making

Invention has always been our strong point; by listening to our customers we have created many successful products in the past. We’ve been through this process many times. Rather than making a product for a potential client based on our assumptions; we listen to them, collect feedback and opinions and finally come up with solution to hopefully resolve their problem.

We had a chat with a local estate agent recently and we were made aware that the current key cabinets used in the office have many flaws. They really wanted a product that was going to properly match their needs.

So, we created one. At first, we got feedback from the agent who gave us the idea in the first place, then we widened our research and contacted several other estate agents and property management companies to listen to what they have to say.

The list of existing problems was pretty straightforward to address:

1.       The depth of the cabinet was too shallow- with the keys hanging on the back wall and on the doors, they were constantly tangled causing them to fall off the hooks.

2.       The hooks themselves were designed to hold one key, not a whole bunch of different sizes of keys.

3.       There wasn’t enough space between rows of keys, again it was perfect for one key or uniform multiple keys but not suitable for the bunch you normally have when managing a property (front door, back door, utility room, garage etc.)

4.       The lock was catching the keys on the hooks when opening and closing the cabinet.

5.       The challenge of storing the cabinet keys in a safe place whilst keeping them available if any of the staff need to go and see clients.

6.       Changing the keys/locks on the cabinet when a key is mislaid or taken accidentally.

7.       Key cabinets falling off the wall due to insufficient mounting brackets provided by the supplier.

After few long nights and debates with our design department we came up with some ideas and solutions. We then produced some drawings, asking our estate agent for additional feedback along the way. Finally, we manufactured our first unit which is going to be tested by the same original estate agent who came to us with their problem!

You can see our first design and drawings here. Please visit our New Better Key Cabinet in the Making page. We’ll update this page as soon as our first cabinet is on the wall so we can pass you the most important information - feedback from the end-user of the product! We will keep updating you on the process until our new product is ready to be launched. Please feel free to e-mail me back if you think that we missed something or there is an issue we can still address by re-designing our first unit.

Thank you for your reading

Dominic- Founder & Director at Letterbox4you