2024
Industry
Real Estate
Company
Ziegert
Status
Shipped
Team
Designer, Product Manager, Engineers, Building developer management, Head of building developer, Sales lead, Operation manager, Marketing manager
Context
Selling under-develop properties have a unique challenge for customers who can't physically visit the property due to its ongoing construction. As Ziegert was aiming to boost sales for their in-house project Kokoni, we formed a cross-functional task force and explored different approaches to present under-construction properties.
The German real estate market underwent a significant transformation during the years 2022-2023. Transitioning from a seller's market, characterized by limited supply and favorable conditions for brokers, it evolved into a buyer's market. This shift was influenced by geopolitical uncertainties stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, coupled with rising inflation and interest rates.
In response to this dynamic landscape, Ziegert, a well-established 40-year-old German real estate company, recognized the importance of adopting a customer-centric approach. The company made strategic investments in research and user experience enhancements for its digital B2C real estate sales platform, Everestate.
Everestate specializes in selling under-development apartments and houses, posing a unique challenge for customers who can't physically visit the property due to its ongoing construction. However, they benefit from lower prices and the opportunity to customize floorplans and fittings.
Ziegert aimed to boost sales for their in-house project, Kokoni—a sustainable house condominium featuring carbon-neutral construction, self-energy supply from solar panels, and geothermal energy.
Kokoni comprises four main house types, each with its own variants and customization options. Effectively communicating and selling this project required a cross-functional task force, including members from product, tech, sales, building development, marketing, sales operation, and CRM. This was an opportunity to test a different aprouach on how to present under-construction properties.
Current user journey
I enhanced the self-usage real estate buyer experience in the Kokoni project, focusing on the initial user journey stages, I prioritized Research and Discovery, and Consideration aligning with strategic goals. This case study details a 2023 experiment targeting challenges in expectations, visualization, and decision-making.
At Everestate we segment our user in two main groups (Buyers and Sellers), each one with its own subdivision. For this project in specific I was exploring a solution for a particular user segment that is the person who buys real estate for self-usage purpose. This decision was made based on the initial sales strategy for Kokoni, which aimed the project for families.
Analyzing the current user journey (based on previous research and conversations with sales team) for this customer we found a couple of pain points. From an strategic point of view it made sense to focus on the first two steps of the journey (1) Research and Discovery, and (2) Consideration; since improving the experience on this moments was also aligned with our OKRs.
On the first two moments of the user journey we have the following issues:
Misalignment of expectations regarding property qualities and price.
Difficult for the self-usage buyers to see themselves in the property, specially with the ones that have not been built yet (like Kokoni)
It is hard to understand how the units within a real state project are organized and make a decision on which one to buy. Having to decide between 30 similar houses may lead to frustration (paradox of choice).
Problem
How might we help self-usage real estate buyers find a property where they see themselves living?
Side goals
Use Kokoni is a project pilot/MVP
Create a scalable solution
Generate sales leads for Kokoni
Success metrics
User engagement
Sales leads conversion rate
Discovery
The journey begins with insights from user research, combined with data analysis and an investigation into previous design decisions.
As part of the strategy for 2023, we contected to rounds of user research to better understand our customer. The information from this resarch gave insights for this and other projects which I worked throught this year. To complement the reseach, I investigated the data that we had about the use of the project page, and also dig into documentation regarding how the old design decisions were made.
User Research
2 Interview rounds
14 Interviews
Prior to this project we planed and executed to interview rounds with real estate buyers in 2023. The research's goal was to understand the current buyer's behavior on the new marketing situation.
The first round was about how people search for an apartment to buy, what are their search criteria, requirements, preferences. On the second round, we were interested on understating what are the motivations that triggers someone to decide that they want to buy real estate, and what is their long term journey looking for the perfect opportunity (some people take years between deciding to buy and actually finding and buying something).
At the start of the project, I looked back at the research documentation to see what insights might help me on this challenge.
Benchmarking analysis
Exploring the potential to shift property customization to the start of the user journey for increased engagement and sales. Analyzed UX strategies from Porsche, Tesla, and Apple for inspiration.
On Tuesday mornings, we used to have an event called "Good Morning Ziegert," a coffee-fueled tech and product discussion. Cris, a design colleague passioned by Porsche, praised their car configurator's UX, even though he wasn't in the market for a car. Not a car enthusiast myself, I gave Porsche's configurator a try and found myself surprisingly engaged. By the end, I couldn't help but daydream about having a few extra zeros in my bank account to purchase a Porsche!
When you buy a property underdeveloped, you also have the possibility to customize its fixtures, fittings, and sometimes even the floorplan. The customization is decided during the interaction with sales team. According to them, this customization is exiting for the customer. So I wonder: can we move the customization to the beginning of the user journey? Therefore we could help the users to visualize themselves in the property, increasing engagement and sales.
I did a benchmarking analysis on companies with customizable products. After a general look in a lot of them, I selected 3 to do a deeper UX analysis: Porsche, Tesla, and Apple.
Ideation
How might we help self-usage real estate buyers find a property where they see themselves living?
Idea
This idea was conceived while I was also working on the redesign of Everestate's project page. When prioritizing ideas for this project we decided that we should do more exploration on it in the future. Kokoni's taskforce was a good opportunity to do so because it was a different project, which our conventional way of presenting it was not clear enough for our customer (based on users feedback).
Hypothesis
We believe that an increase in engagement and sales leads will be achieved if self-usage buyers can customize the property in the beginning of their user journey.
Wireframe
When wireframing, I incorporated recurring patterns identified in the benchmarking analysis. On desktop devices, visuals were placed on the left with options on the right. Ensured constant visibility of property price, financing, and CTA. Initially, I contemplated using 'back and continue' buttons, but during prototyping, I discovered that implementing a continuous scroll would would make the experience more enjoyable.
Solution
To develop the configurator, a profound understanding of the Kokoni project's structure was essential. Collaborating with the building developer manager, we crafted an optimal user flow. The primary decision point revolves around selecting the house type, designated with T-shirt sizing conventions, which influences the size, floors, and rooms. This choice branches into four possibilities, leading to subsequent decisions, such as balcony preference and fittings design. We opted for an outer-to-inner house configuration sequence. The final step showcases 2 or more houses with the selected configuration on the map, allowing users to choose, download the floor plan, and submit an inquiry.
Solution details
Floating CTA bar with auto-updated price
Quick financing calculation.
Property Overview
Know exactly where your house will be.
Testing
The solution gained team and stakeholder approval, but uncertainty persisted about its benefits versus tech investment. I crafted a non-code MVP by replicating configurator logic using Typeform. Allowing us to conduct a low-effort experiment in production
The solution was perceived as great for the team and stakeholders. However, there was still too much uncertainty on how might it benefit the company versus the investment in tech required. When dealing with such a high cost (financial and emotional) product, user testing and interviews can get us a glimpse of what would happen. However it was decided that even dough it might be to risk. So I was challenged by my manager if I could do a non-code MVP.
Turning an Epic Into a 3 Points Story
Using Typeform I manually replicated the logic behind the configurator. By doing this we only needed a small story to better integrate Typeform with the user journey, and we could run an experiment on production with low engineer effort.
Bellow, you can see the Typeform logic:
Hacking Typeform
To make the experience better, allowing the user to make informed decisions I explored images as much as I could. This was also tricky to enable good visibility in mobile and desktop, after some testing I got to go results for an MVP.
Results
The experiment was a success. And we were able to test it on the market with low engineer effort. Unfortunately I left the company right after the test end.
50%
of the leads for Kokoni came from the house configurator.
3rd
Most used features in unity page. Just behind photo gallery and floorplan dowload.
Ready
to expand non-code solution to more projects and scale it.
