Buying a new home is like choosing a new direction to live your life. For many, buying property is more than an ordinary investment; it's sort of fulfilling a dream. The journey of buying a real estate property is more like a roller coaster ride full of emotions. So what’s a customer journey in real estate anyway? In simple words, it is the entire process that a potential property buyer goes through to buy a property. From the initial decision to invest to the decisive moment of card-swiping, the customer's journey is paramount. Over the years, customers' buying patterns have changed, and now technology plays a major role in influencing buyers' journeys in real estate. 

Despite the allure and emotional resonance of the journey, it unfolds with its own set of challenges. Similar to any path leading to the fulfillment of a dream, this one also has its rough patches. These roadblocks in the customer journey contribute to the overall complexity. ‍

Misleading details, an ambiguous path...‍

A buyer starts his journey by searching for properties in his preferred location. He starts his search using two of the of the most commonly used sources: the internet and real estate brokers. It is obvious that customers have a lot of queries and are hungry to get as much information as they can from the agents. So, the initial hurdles stem from brokers providing inaccurate information or real estate agents responding with delays or unclear answers to customer queries. India is a diverse country; hence, language often becomes a roadblock in buyers' voyage towards finding a new property. The excitement of searching for a new property mellows down with the traditional way of real estate presentation. The old way of showcasing a property consists of sharing static 2D images or videos of the property; these are often blurry and fail to capture the true architectural value of the estate. ‍

Less attention = Less engagement‍

Most real estate companies use static maps for sharing location-related details, which is not enough to cover The limited knowledge about the neighborhood or property location creates obstacles to understanding the real value of the project. Even after all this, when customers decide to visit a property in person, the onsite exploration center experiences are even worse. These events get overcrowded during the weekend; hence, instead of exploring the real estate project, it becomes a hassle. The sales team cannot give enough time and attention to the buyers during their property visit. This makes their experience unpleasant and unengaging. The heavy use of paper-based marketing brochures in the name of property visualization makes the customer confused and puzzled.‍

Broken Booking Experience‍

After all the exploration, when the customer finally makes up his mind to book a property, the difficulties still linger. Whether it is transparency between the buyer and the real estate agents or keeping proof of discounts offered to buyers during booking, Throughout the buyer's journey, a communication vacuum can give rise to misunderstandings. For example, the confusion over inventory availability is triggered by miscommunication and the lag in real-time updates. The thing that frustrates the buyers most is the complicated KYC documentation procedures. Juggling the intricacies of applicant data uploads and customer payment tracking can contribute to a less satisfying and underwhelming experience for buyers.

The real estate journey can be a maze of complexities that impact overall enjoyment. Relata truly understands the importance of the customer journey in real estate; hence, it has developed solutions that are accurately tailored to tackle these problems and ultimately elevate the journey. 

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Relata’s Role in Bringing Change

Relata’s innovative team of geniuses has created a product solution range that can redefine the real estate industry for the better. Relata product suites are for realtors, but they are made to make customer journeys better. The addition of Relata to your real estate journey can make the buyer's journey struggle-free. Relata utilizes top-class innovative technology to tackle real estate woes and make the path seamless for property buyers. The platform's adeptness in virtual engagement, personalized interactions, and other crucial stepping stones in the real estate market ensures a transformative experience for property seekers. Let's explore Relata solutions and how they can be mapped to the customer journey.

First Stage: Awareness; Real Estate Discovery with Reiya‍

The first stage of a journey is known as the awareness stage. This is the stage where the customer still has not made up their mind on which property they want to purchase. The customer might have come across a property advertisement or found their dream property by doing an doing an online search, and to make the final call at this stage, he needs the most amount of information. The most common source to get information is via brokers. The issue is that brokers are not always available to answer customer queries, and linguistic diversity can create a gap in communication, making buyers' journeys troublesome.

Relata understands the root cause of the problem and has created an AI real estate companion to answer customer queries 24/7. This generative AI is called Reiya, and Reiya can speak and understand 8+ languages. Reiya does more than answer questions; it shares brochures, VR links, walkthroughs, and opportunity documents with buyers. Now customers can ask any questions related to real estate projects and get accurate answers from Reiya. Not only this, Relata has another bot companion specifically built to guide customers during their property understanding stage. This bot is called Cognibot, and it is a video bot. This means that real estate project developers can customize the bot for any individual on their end to answer customer queries. The multilingual non-AI bot has tailored responses with contextual filters for relevance, efficiency, and precision in every interaction. With the help of the Cognibot bot and Reiya Customers now have a clearer understanding of their preferred property; hence, they want to explore it further. ‍

Second Stage: Exploration; Navigating with Visualization and Neighbourhood Maps‍

Buyers have made up their minds to learn more about the real estate project and explore it more. We all know how important visualization is in real estate, yet customer galleries are often filled with blurry 2-D images and videos. These pictures and videos cannot truly convey property value. This is where Relata comes in with the ultimate visualization solution. 

Welcome into the new era of real estate with Relata's game-changing virtual sales gallery. The VSG component can bridge the gap between reality and virtual reality in an interactive 3D tour with Relata's digital replica of the real estate project. The customer journey gets far more exciting as they can take automatic 360-degree virtual property tours and explore every detail from every angle. Navigating through the entire project, from master plans to amenities, is so easy with Relata’s visualization. The VSG gallery also consists of HD images and videos of the property. As Relata promised to eliminate all the roadblocks from buyers paths, it also empowers buyers with more and more information about their chosen project. With the help of interactive neighborhood maps, users can better understand the location of important places in the vicinity. They can also learn about transportation routes, nearby amenities, and upcoming developments by utilizing these vicinity maps during their journey. ‍

Third Stage Consideration: The Onsite Suite, Presales, Lead Management, and Analytics Suite‍

After carefully scrutinizing the property with VSG Tours, The customer finally decided to visit the property in person. If a person is going to the person, then it can be assumed the customer is already in the consideration stage. Now Relata takes care of the most relevant problem of onsite visits, which is an overcrowded and unengaging experience. Relata’s onsite suite can help the sales team differentiate between a new visit and a revisit; hence, the team can curate a more dedicated pitch for the customer. Also, customer onsite visits can be tracked, which gives the realtors an upper hand over the customers. 

In this stage, the customer is already overwhelmed by so many things, and here they all demand a bit more attention. The Analytical Suite from Relata takes the reins of well-managed lead data, converting it into strategic intelligence thanks to the Lead Management Suite. With the help of data analytics, the sales team designs the perfect pitch and addresses customer queries like a breeze, making the buyer's journey seamless. Not only this, Relata does not want geography to become an obstacle in a buyer’s journey, which is why it has built the Presales Suite. Now the sales team can connect with the customers with the help of audio and video conference features, even with limited 4G network coverage, and offer digitally guided demo tours. The voyage towards buying a dream property gets simpler with Relata.  ‍

Fourth Stage: Decision and Booking: The Booking Engine 

After careful consideration, buyers finally make up their minds to book their preferred real estate. Before Relata, this might have been the stage where customers suffered the most, but not anymore. Relata’s booking engine is the right choice for managing all the hurdles related to payment and inventory. Relata Payment and Inventory Suite can manage offline payments digitally with the ability to upload proof of payment and receipts, as well as a check and DD number. It can also track multiple-part payments and payment reconciliation as well. With live inventory tracking and a real-time update on booked and available inventories, customers no longer fall prey to double bookings.

Relata’s customer-facing suite is like a one-stop solution to all booking mishaps. It makes the complicated KYC and documentation procedures just so simple. Streamline the booking process with Applicant KYC and Document Upload features; it also lets the customer upload necessary KYC documents on their own. All these and much more are just to ensure a satisfactory, hassle-free customer journey.  ‍

Fifth Stage: After Booking: Post-Sale Suite

Buyers' journeys do not end with property bookings, as there are several more things to take care of. Relata Post-Sale Suite is built to solve all the hurdles that customers may face after booking. From Kyc management to documentation, everything comes under this one umbrella. The real estate project team can generate a cost sheet with calculations based on the customer's choice of unit and provide customized payment plans according to project offers. The liberty to choose different payment plans gives the customer financial flexibility, which makes their journey even better.  

The customer journey in real estate is a long emotional process where Relata emerges as a messiah, which makes the voyage memorable. Relata addresses all the challenges that customers face at every turn and how we transform that journey from a potential obstacle course to a carefully curated experience. Within the intricate canvas of real estate, the artistry of a masterpiece is revealed through the brushstrokes of customer journey mapping with Relata. Relata aims to accelerate real estate sales and make buyers' journeys a successful tale of efficiency and satisfaction. 

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