Helping APlace by Glenvill Develop and Deliver a Market-Leading Customer Experience

APlace by Glenvill delivers affordable house and land packages tailored for investors looking to develop a reliable property portfolio.

The APlace customer has changed from being mostly offshore, to 92% local investors, which presents a different set of customer challenges. Their relatively young team had the enthusiasm and desire to create a market leading customer experience, that not only has ties to a customer service charter but demonstrates a commitment to each other.

Judi Carr, Director of Property Republic, was engaged to host a workshop to develop a Customer Service Charter that would act as a ‘one source of truth’ for the APlace team, and be launched internally and externally within 3 months.

The Approach

In the weeks prior to the workshop, Judi conducted a pre-briefing session, where businesses challenges were identified. Judi then designed the workshop agenda to address and overcome each one.

An off-site, all-day workshop was conducted with 20 participants plus a guest speaker, an important partner who provided valuable insight into what the business could do to improve.

A review of best practice in customer experience both within and external to the property industry was presented to provide some context.

To set the scene of the Customer Service Charter, examples of market leading charters from around the world were presented.

A six-step process was outlined and using a range of techniques including individual ideas, voting, group ideas generation and compelling presentations, the participants worked to identify or create:

• Customer Service Vision

• Customer Service Principles

• Principles for working with each other

• Service quality measurements

• Areas for improvement

• Communication methods

All these ideas were then allocated to one of three business areas and the group voted on their champion, whose job it is to ensure all actions are completed by the agreed date.

The Results

Judi took all agreed workshop outcomes and provided a report documenting each step of the day. She and the Property Republic team also crafted the Customer Service Charter, ensuring it was ready to be shared and utilised by the APlace team.

The Feedback

Participants were asked to complete an online survey following the workshop. Here’s what they said:

• Great engagement

• Plan now in progress to improve our customer service

• Establish a clear action plan

• Vision was clear

• Everyone is on board to make improvements

• We will succeed as a team

• Different individuals and business groups were definitely on different pages