Charles Church Case Study

Challenge

Charles Church wanted to come out of the recession at the front of the market – able to react quickly to customer demands and exceed their expectations; delivering the content the user was expecting and wanted!

Solution

A user centric website that ensured the user felt they were driving the journey, and had their questions answered. So many property sites simply shout who they are and ignore the customers’ needs. The first steps were to analyze the current competitor offerings. Research was also undertaken to determine how users to search for {new homes/houses in [location]}.

A tried and tested process was followed – user needs; user acquisition; information architecture – these steps establish the best way to design and build the website.

• User acquisition
  • Analyse the current online presence:
    • Search engine position
    • Content quality
    • Keyword themes/silos
    • Competitor analysis
• User needs
  • Research and analysis to establish expectations and thus goals for the site
  • Internal analysis of process to ensure needs could be met both digitally and conventional processes (meetings, viewings, paperwork etc.)
• Information architecture
  • Full site structure
  • Prototype mock up

Results

1. A customer centric website that is easy to use and focuses on the user and their needs – giving full information not just on the developments and plots but also local information.
2. A fully integrated (with COINS) development site plan that shows in real time plot availability, price and location.
3. Users can prepare their own downloadable brochure of favourite developments, plots and locations.
4. Clear Calls to Action (book a viewing) from all pages – had a major increase in bookings and reservations as a direct result.

Conclusions

• Thorough research of the competition established initial benchmarks and opportunities.
• Consumer research, and respecting the results, leads to fresh insight, a establishes expectation and threats
• Thorough architecture planning to ensure agreed goals can be met in a cost effective manner. The architecture also ensured corporate expectation was realistic and deliverable!
• Following a process meant the results reflected the needs of the market and the user, not simply the opinion of one or two people in the company….who perhaps are not either web build experts, or buyers of their own properties?