What will be the customer experience in real estate in the future ?

In the real estate industry, the customer now initiates his purchase journey by his own means, via its personal network or via Internet, less and less in contact with the promoter directly. The visit to the sales office or shop now only takes place after a strong and anticipated documentation from the customer. Since buying a property can be a source of anxiety, we are convinced that it is essential to deliver an emotional dimension to our solutions, to anticipate needs and expectations evolving rapidly.

• 70% of consumers consider that emotions count for 50% of their purchasing decision.
• 66% say that the experiential approach positively changes their opinion about the brand.
• 7 out of 10 consumers who have had a positive consumer experience talk about it around them.

(Source: Jack Morton, Survey)

Many emotional factors are added to the financial context of the transaction. The purchase in real estate involves the life of a person and his/her assets.

We seek to engage the client in a positive approach, allowing us to establish a link sustainable through a unique experience. This approach focuses on emotions, senses, imagination and interactions between the customer and his environment.

Digital as a support for new experiences

With the democratization of mainstream virtual reality technologies, we can immerse our users in an experience adaptable to their wishes, helping them to visualize and personalize their future property before buying, and then project themselves into their lives after the act of purchase.

Investing in real estate is an important lifestyle choice, which is why we preferred to swap the VR headset for a 180° projection, thus allowing the experience to be shared. The field of view is almost entirely covered, exploration can be shared with relatives whose opinions count in the final decision, as well as with the seller who will accompagny them throughout the scenario. The experience becomes collaborative and participative, it is no longer restrictive, and allows to build together this phase of future life.

Since the public concerned has generally identified their expectation upstream, we want them to take control of their own experience. We design intuitive products with immediate ease of use. A touch pad in the centre of the room offers a set of controls to evolve in 3D scenes and customize their content. The users can influence weather settings, time of day, and in a future version why not on the general arrangement of furniture, paint colors...

Since the emotional experience is deeply related to the pleasure of the senses, we have chosen to enrich our design by soliciting the different human senses. Rather than limit ourselves to a good quality in 3D visualization, we wanted to insist on the realism of the different phases of the day, the sound environments according to the location, we take care of the transitions and the different interface design, and thus bring real added value to the experience.

In order to give a better perception of the environment and encourage immersion, we have chosen to incorporate also spatialized sound ambiences as well as a diffusion of odors at particular moments. From the smell of coffee emanating from the kitchen of a loft, to the smell of rain in front of the bay window, embellished with a simulation of a light breeze in the middle of the green spaces, everything is set up to take whole groups into the photorealistic scenarios imagined by our team.

The combination of all these design and scenario choices was very positively received by the first visitors at the launch of this new creation at the Digital Change Exhibit on 22d and 23rd of January 2019. Indeed, the 200 curious people who tested the experience on these two days had the opportunity to be cut off from the tumult of the exhibition for a few moments, as the immersion was so total.