One of the UK’s largest developers of residential homes, has implemented “Touch Screen” technology from U-Touch to enhance ‘customer experience’ at its prestigious new Tabard Square development.
 

BACKGROUND: BERKELEY HOMES AT TABARD SQUARE, LONDON

BERKELEY HOMES is the largest division of the Berkeley Homes Group Plc, a FTSE 250 organisation. The company has a turnover in excess of £500 million and last year built over 1,800 new residential homes. In recent years the company has broadened its portfolio from traditional detached properties to include large urban ‘regeneration schemes’. Tabard Square is one such project and one of the largest mixed-use developments in central London, at 1.2 hectares. The striking 570 unit development, designed by award winning architects ‘Rolfe Judd’, is built on a historic site in Long Lane, a short distance from Tower Bridge and just minutes from Borough tube station. It incorporates a landmark tower and offers stylish 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments and penthouses, many with extensive views across London. The site is complemented by a landscaped public square with facilities for cafés, restaurants and shops.
 

THE IMPORTANCE OF 'CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE'

Berkeley Homes is committed to ensuring that its customers receive a high quality of service and product - and that they enjoy the ‘experience’ of purchasing a new home. So, to help customers experience the quality of living offered throughout the development at Tabard Square, the company has invested in a state of the art, multi-media ‘Sales and Marketing Suite’, located on site in Long Lane. The suite contains a detailed ‘interactive’ scale model of the development, combined with large ‘touch enabled’ display screens providing a combination of photographs, floor plans and computer generated images of the entire development.
 

SALES & MARKETING SUITE - BUSINESS CASE

Berkeley Homes sell the majority, if not all, of their properties ‘off-plan’. That is to say the apartments at Tabard Square need to be sold before the development is complete and ready for occupation.

Selling apartments ‘off plan’ enables Berkeley Homes to recoup a percentage of the company’s financial outlay at an early stage, de-risking the development and releasing funds for investment in future projects.

The Sales and Marketing suite in Long Lane was built specifically to help sell ‘off-plan’ by providing clients with a realistic impression of how the site and individual apartments will look on the day they move in, together with a taste of the ‘lifestyle’ they can expect in Tabard Square.
 

SALES & MARKETING SUITE - REQUIREMENTS

For these reasons, Berkeley Homes use Sales and Marketing Suites on many of their large scale developments. They often use 3D models and large display screens with photographs, floor plans and artistic impressions, of the suites alongside hard copy brochures. However, for Tabard Square the company wanted to provide clients (and their own sales staff) with the ability to ‘quickly and easily’ locate and display apartments that match a client’s specific criteria. Having located a suitable apartment, they want the client to simply press a button and print out full details on the specific unit in which they are interested so they can review them again once they get home.

Unfortunately, past experience showed that it is time consuming for sales staff use a mouse and keyboard to navigate through the presentation materials. Expecting clients to do so is simply impractical. Once clients enter the suite, Berkeley Homes only has a few precious moments to engage their attention & establish if there is an apartment available which meets their needs. Whilst some people look immediately for a sales executive, others prefer to look around themselves before requesting help or further information.

So, a new type of ‘interface’ was needed ­ something that made entering a client’s requirements and navigating to, and through, the ideal apartment as simple as pushing a few buttons on a screen.
 

SALES & MARKETING SUITE - 'CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE'

To design and build the sophisticated models and computer simulations within the Sales and Marketing Suite, Berkeley Homes engaged the services of professional designers (Hunter Design Associates - www.hunter-design.co.uk), visualisation experts (Tekuchi ­ www.tekuchi.com ) and model builders (3DD Models ­ www.3ddmodels.co.uk ).

Hunter Design have been involved with the project from the very beginning ­ from designing the look and feel of the suite and specifying the 3D model to producing detailed floors plans for each of the 570 apartments. Tekuchi made extensive use of their computer generated imaging (or CGI) skills to provide Berkeley Homes’s clients with an accurate impression of how the development of apartments will look once they are finished. Hunter Design produced specifications for the 3 dimensional, ‘interactive’ scale model of the development which was subsequently built by 3DD Models.

However, it was Tekuchi who came up with the ideal solution for a ‘simple user interface’ to access the multi-media tour. Attaching ‘touch screen overlays’ from U-Touch to each of the 3 LCD display screens would make them ‘touch sensitive’ and enable easy navigation simply by using a finger to push on-screen buttons and select from a list of options.

Today, on entering the suite a client is greeted by a welcoming environment including landscape views of the site, a coffee area and a 3D model of the development. Next to the model is a ‘touch screen’ which asks the client which block they are interested in, how many bedrooms they need and their budget. This information is then used to ‘light-up’ all apartments on the model which are available and meet the client’s criteria ­ clearly indicating the block, floor, location and aspect of each. On the wall opposite the model is a larger ‘touch screen’ where the customer enters details of the specific apartment they would like to experience in more detail. Through this screen they can bring up floor plans and photographs, indicating room layout, fixtures, fittings and the views over London afforded by their chosen apartment. If they want to capture information to take home, they simply press the on-screen ‘print’ button to obtain a detailed specification including copies of the floor plan and associated photographs.

Finally, opposite the sales office is another touch screen. It uses the same underlying technology and accesses the same plans, specifications and photographs - but this is a large 40” screen with a solid glass finish, flush mounted in the wall. It is used by Berkeley Homes’s negotiators to highlight the best features of the development and help ‘close the sale’.