Every
industry has unique issues. Yet industries also share common problems.
When solving problems for one industry, I often find the solutions by
looking at best practices in another industry.
Although
I mainly focus on the problems facing multichannel retail companies in
this column, I often get e-mail from people who run
business-to-business (B2B) service companies, pharmaceutical companies,
financial companies, real estate companies, and so forth. They ask
similar questions,
believing information about retailers doesn‘t apply to them. One of our
current clients, for example, is a very large real estate company.
Let‘s look at how we sectionalize a typical retail site‘s functionality
and apply it to the real estate company‘s site.
Properties Are Products
There are three major user processes in the retail industry:
Product process.
This process takes the user from the home page to a product page. It
encompasses the search engine, search results page,
category/subcategory pages, product listing pages, and product detail
page. This process helps the user find the correct product and provide
the
relevant information required for the user to purchase the product. It
also recommends other products in case the user isn‘t interested in the
current product, as well as up-sells to the current product.
Checkout process. The checkout process encompasses the
shopping cart page, all checkout pages, and the thank-you page. The
purpose of this process it to quickly and easily allow the user to buy
the products he‘s chosen. The process also collects customer
information and up-sells other
products.
Support process. The support process exists when
retailers (or companies) support their products. The process involves
staying in touch with users, proactively updating them with useful
information tailored to their needs, providing product information and
updates, and providing a
mechanism for the customer to ask questions and receive answers (via
any number of channels including Web site, e-mail, and phone).
The real estate industry has similar processes:
Property process.
This process shows the user properties he may be interested in, as well
as generates interest in them. Like the product process, it encompasses
the search page, search results page, category pages, property listing
page, and property detail pages. In addition to
providing all information required for the user to decide to rent or
buy the selected property, the process is also responsible for
recommending other properties in case the user isn‘t interested in the
current one, as well as up-sells (such as parking spots) for the
current property.
The application process. Once the user has found a
property to buy or rent, this process ushers the user through the
application and approval. Additionally, it should offer relevant
up-sells (insurance, parking spots, etc.) and collect vital user
information.
Tenant support. Much like product support, this process
is for an existing tenant and provides customer support for the
property. It also provides additional services, such as letting the
tenant know about pertinent information, providing a feedback mechanism
for the tenant, and enabling
services, such as "find a roommate," "sublet your apartment," "contact
management," and "get information about the surrounding area."
By
drawing these parallels, we can look at best practices in other
industries (such as retail) and see what functionality can be used in
the context of this site. The real estate site we‘re working on doesn‘t
make recommendations during the property process, for example. It
simply lists the
properties and displays details for the property selected. Taking a cue
from the retail world, it should offer a comparison feature, suggest
alternative properties, and list up-sells (such as a parking space) the
user could opt to lease along with an apartment.
The
next time you redesign your site or add new functionality, survey sites
similar to yours, as well as those with wholly different business
models or that are in completely different industries, and seemingly
have nothing to offer in the way of best practices. You‘ll be surprised
how much you
can learn.
