The crucial role of customer success within real estate

Karen McCarthy, director of customer experience at Locale, shares why introducing customer success can transform real estate’s relationship with PropTech.

Ensuring successful adoption and usage of technology within real estate has been a consistent thorn in PropTech’s side, so it’s no surprise to see an increasing amount of PropTech players introducing customer success teams, and about time too. At Locale, we are no different. This year saw the transformation of our customer service approach as we went back to the drawing board to map out our customer challenges, and identify the different, but complementary, areas within customer service, resulting in the creation of a dedicated Customer Success team. 

In 2022, the value of PropTech continues to be questioned, especially when those who do adopt, struggle to promote the onboarding of the tech effectively to peers and occupiers, resulting in an ever-widening gap in engagement with the tech and the wider understanding of its value. With the launch of Customer Success, we can foster an intimate and proactive approach in understanding the goals and concerns of our customers and their properties, whilst also creating an avenue to receive direct feedback to accurately measure the pain points and challenges in the user journey. There is no one-size-fits-all approach or product for our customers, and so being able to offer a balance of human and tech-powered services to ensure successful usage is essential to supporting our customers to adapt to the newly emerged possibilities of our wide-ranging smart features.

For PropTech to thrive in this tech-resistant industry, a personal touch is required for stakeholders to successfully visualise and act on its capabilities. Collaboration has always been key to improving the user experience and is a core value at Locale to ensure we continue to evolve our approach to meet the needs of our customers.