Real estate and construction sectors have been slowly ramping up their efforts to innovate in recent years. Consumers having to view hundreds of properties prior to agreeing a purchase is now thankfully mostly a thing of the past.
In a bid to combat this issue, PropTech entrepreneurs have revolutionised the way property purchases and rentals are managed. What had to be seen previously in person, can now be achieved digitally.
The real estate companies that cannot afford their own customer portals delegate this responsibility to big providers like Zoopla, Rightmove and OnTheMarket. Those in turn, consistently put pressure on their Development and QA teams to improve their websites or application features quickly, without compromising quality.
Poor quality dev work can be disastrous for a business, especially within a hyper-competitive market where user experience and reputation remain paramount.
If you want to grow and remain in the forefront of your customer’s minds, here are five handy tips on how to improve the quality of your website or mobile site. After all, a bug fixed during the developmental phase is less costly than one experienced by the end-user.
- Analyse data
Look at your customer usage data, so that you have the opportunity to build your quality management system organically. Make sure that your online services are fit for purpose and effective in sustaining attention. As a rule of thumb, prioritise pages that are used by consumers the most, as this will enable you to maximise traffic and keep content up to date.
2. Pay attention to feedback
Feedback will tell you what is and isn’t working.. Maintain the flow of positive internet reviews on Google, Facebook or online marketplaces, as they can often play a part in the difference between whether content is engaging or ignored. Provide solutions to problems on public forums, too.
3. Innovate
Add new features regularly to improve UX (user experience) and ensure that you have conducted enough consumer research before developing new features. You may view new functionality as valuable, but it might not resonate with the end-user. According to Google, 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned after just three seconds. Make your three seconds count.
4. Increase your speed
Consumers are impatient and demanding. A lack of responsiveness and instability on a mobile or website will annoy and prevent repeat visits.
5. Diversify
Diversity is vital for any of your teams to improve the quality of your web or mobile site. It can bring fresh perspectives and new ideas. The more diverse the group of testers – from developers to letting managers and business analysts – the better the results will be and the more rewarding the experience.
For further reading, Wectory advises taking a look at PropTech 3.0, as this report was written by real estate industry veteran Andrew Baum, who just so happens to hail from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.