Project Overview
Banyan Tree Group is a leading operator of international hotels, resorts and residences, head quartered in Singapore. Together we created a Group Property Management platform which consists of a collection of enterprise apps that their sales force can use in the field to streamline the sales process and achieve even greater results.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Ms. Ling Tanasinsiri, Product Owner
Sitsari Kitisakkul, Project Manager
Orada Prusapan, Visual Designer
Sunchai Pitakchonlasup, iOS Developer
Nitigron Ruengmontre, iOS Developer
Kongphop Kositanont, Web Developer
Paptawan Nakchamrassri, QA Tester
Project Brief
Banyan Tree Group operates a number of different property brands, including Banyan Tree Residences, Laguna Park, Cassia and Angsana Residences, with numerous properties under each brand.
The company required an iPad app which would put all necessary information about each property at their sales staff's fingertips, to enable them to act immediately with confidence and agility to all customer questions and requests.
The platform was designed to empower staff with tools that could help make sales appointments more efficient and productive. The app needed to allow staff to give virtual tours of the area surrounding a property and inside each unit without leaving the sales office, to help prospects refine their options before heading out to view properties in person, one of the most time consuming aspects of the job.
With so many sales staff in operation the app also needed to streamline the sharing of information around unit availability, ensuring everyone in the field is updated in real time as each unit is sold.
The app also needed to provide quick access to all important documentation, such as e-brochures, leasing agreements and management contracts that can be sent from the app to interested prospects immediately, rather than needing to set reminders to follow-up later.
At the same time as empowering staff, the app also needed to provide information and privileges to investment customers, to further enhance the overall customer experience of dealing with this world class property brand.
Project Innovation/Need
The platform uses a non-standard UI that has been designed from scratch to best meet the sales users' needs. The interface also uses custom animations that were created to give a slick and fluid experience, to reflect to the overall sense of quality when dealing with this premium property brand.
The platform relies heavily on high quality visuals and rich multimedia, meaning file sizes are very large to host all of this content. Rather than cram everything into a single application, we created a network of apps, that utilize deep linking to switch from one to a specific page in another. From the user's perspective, they would not know they are transitioning from one app to another as they navigate between properties, but this innovative approach allows the files size of each build to be reduced by distributing content between several apps. As an enterprise app, Banyan Tree Group utilises Mobile Device Management to remotely distribute the apps to the devices it has issued to sales staff, which could otherwise have been problematic if the file size was too significant.
The 360 degrees area and in-room tours (which can be explored both automatically or manually under the users control) are another impressive feature which gives a great demonstration for sales prospects, especially in their own hands. To achieve this effect the app combine several images files for each location into seamless 360 degree views, which the user can swipe to rotate and pinch to zoom in & out.
User Experience
To achieve the goals of the application it first required a strong understanding of the context of use, the jobs the company's internal users must complete at each stage of the sales funnel and the typical user journey in terms of the flow from one task to another, to ensure the information is organized in a logical progressive format.
On beginning a new engagement, the sales staff user first opens the master Group Property Management application. From there they may select Banyan Tree Group section (providing information on the company as a whole), they may select from one of their property brands, or alternatively The Sanctuary Club, the area for investment customers.
In the Group section the user can introduce prospects to the company, with information on their mission, philosophy, founders and key business milestones.
On selecting one of the property groups, the brand specific app is opened with UI that matches its branding. A wealth of content is then available, including area maps, site plans, aerial virtual tours, nearby facilities and attractions, 360 degrees interior viewing, e-brochures and other multimedia.
A phone application is also provided as part of the platform for Sales Managers to change availability of units, which instantly updates the availability map in the iPad app as well as sending a push notification to all sales staff.
Language can be toggled between English, Chinese, Russian & Vietnamese to support demonstrations that were previously challenging if a language barrier was present.
Project Marketing
As an enterprise application, the app is deployed to all sales staff for use on the iPad device they have been equipped with. A training video has been prepared to effectively onboard new users, so new staff can familiarise themselves with the rich feature set and ensure they are fully engaged with the platform before using it in the field.
Project Privacy
All information is stored securely and privacy best practices are strictly adhered to.
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