Opening a door to shared ownership homes.

Challenge

The L&Q Group is one of the largest housing associations in England with over  120,000 homes. After conducting a survey for shared ownership customers, L&Q discovered that their satisfaction levels dropped from 94% at exchange of contracts to 23% after they moved into their new home. Qrious was asked to improve L&Q’s user experience to ensure customers were comprehensively informed of all their responsibilities as a shared owner before entering into an agreement.

Our Approach

Our discovery process revealed that whilst relevant shared ownership content was available on L&Q’s website, the language used to navigate those pages was misleading. The signposting to pages was indirect. The confusing structure meant that the key information, required to provide a fully transparent buying experience, was the most difficult to access.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the L&Q customer experience, the Qrious team:

• Examined over 320 individual pieces of customer feedback
• Interviewed L&Q’s customer enquiries & complaints teams
• Performed in-depth qualitative data analysis
• Mapped the end-to-end purchase journey from the customer’s viewpoint
• Documented the stages of the buying process
• Analysed the channels used for information
• Assessed the communication at each touchpoint

Solution

Qrious started by restructuring the website, incorporating a flatter hierarchy of pages and ordering them to reflect the thought process of a typical buyer (see picture below). This addressed the problem of accessibility to the pages that mattered most.

Next to this the sending of essential emails was added to improve the customer experience. Presenting the relevant information at each key milestone of the buying process through emails kept the customer updated. The emails redirected them through the website to the key facts they needed to know before committing to the next stage. Thanks to the changes the website turned into more than just an initial house-hunting tool.

Outcome

• Improved visibility of key pages led to way more users browsing essential content during the initial stages of their buying journey.
• Introduced milestone emails led to the number of buyers, who had seen all essential information, at the point of exchange had increased by 2000%.
• Boosted after-sales customer rating as prospective buyers were made aware of their potential responsibility of being a shared owner earlier.