Edina Realty: Taking home buying to the next level
Edina Realty, a division of Berkshire Hathaway, is a regional leader in residential real-estate who has a reputation of setting the standard in customer service. RBA worked with Edina Realty to transform their digital experience to better serve their customers and agents.
Challenge
Taking ownership of the platform and the experience
For over 10 years, Edina Realty had been leveraging an industry-centric online web platform for their website. They had been struggling with the pace of improvements along with matching the needs of contemporary web users whose needs had evolved over the years and expected a mobile-first experience.
RBA engaged with Edina Realty executive and technology leadership to create a vision for a modern web solution that would not only engage users but also leverage contemporary cloud platforms.
“Our approach had to be mobile first.”
Greg Mason
CEO of Edina Realty
Results
Owning the experience.
The combination of a modern platform combined with a rich user experience has allowed Edina Realty to serve the needs of their existing customers while also attracting new ones through ongoing feature development and enhancements. With over 500,000 property searches per day, users are truly embracing the new experience.
250K
Listings with 100 searchable fields
500K
Searches per day
250K
Page views per day
How we did it
Key components
Prototypes and User Testing
RBA created an interactive wireframe to get feedback from users and stakeholders during the design phase of the project. We also conducted usability focus groups to capture additional input.
Responsive mobile design
RBA created a mobile-first experience that enables users to find their perfect home from all their devices. Using responsive design, we improved operational efficiency by eliminating the mobile-specific version.
Personalized interactions
Through an integration with a digital marketing platform and Dynamics CRM, users are able to save their favorite properties as well as saved searches. This allows users to receive personalized emails when their favorite properties are updated or new ones are added to the system that matches their criteria.
Cloud platform
From the get go, we designed this solution with the cloud in mind. Utilizing the latest features of the Azure cloud we developed a complete platform as a service (PaaS) solution to grow with Edina Realty as their business grows and to address the seasonality of the real estate business.
Managed Services
After launch of the site, RBA provided managed services to deliver SLA (Service Level Agreement) and 24/7 backed support.
“The modernized Edinarealty.com features a search that allows consumers to easily select criteria that is important to them. This approach allows for a user to more easily filter the list of available properties to their ‘must haves’ when looking for a home.”
Greg Mason
CEO of Edina Realty