One of the biggest challenges facing the branded residences industry occurs in a phase that receives surprisingly little attention at industry events or within wider commentary: what happens after a prospective buyer makes an enquiry.
Brands have significant control over almost every touchpoint of a development, from early positioning and messaging through design, construction standards, amenities, services and the resident experience.
Yet in the vast majority of cases, they do not sell the residences or directly control the sales experience.
Many buyers are unlikely to be aware of this. They may submit an enquiry through the project website or directly to the brand without realising that the enquiry will ultimately be handled by a separate sales organisation. In reality, that enquiry is routinely handled by the developer’s sales team, master broker or an appointed real estate agency.
From that point, the experience is delivered by someone other than the brand the buyer thought they had engaged with, and if handled poorly, that experience can reflect badly on the brand.
The Inconsistent Buyer Journey
This is not a new problem, nor does it occur in every project.
There are many excellent in-house developer sales teams and highly professional agencies that know the product, respond quickly, build real relationships, and deliver a buyer experience that matches the expectations of the brands.
The sales structure itself is not the issue.
The problem is inconsistency, and it is becoming harder to ignore as the branded residences sector continues to grow. The extraordinary growth of the industry over the past decade means more projects and more buyer enquiries moving through the market.
A problem that may once have been isolated to an individual development, broker or sales team becomes more noticeable as the volume of activity increases.
Brands are aware of the problems created by a poor buyer journey, and for many, it has become a genuine pain point.
They can establish detailed standards across almost every aspect of the development, while having little or no control over what happens once a prospective purchaser actually submits an enquiry.
Mystery Shopping Assessment
VOS Consultants has written extensively about this issue, and its recent mystery shopping assessment of close to 100 developments provides further evidence of the inconsistency across the sector.
Assessing projects from the perspective of a potential buyer, VOS engaged with brands, developers, sales teams and master agencies to examine how enquiries were handled and how the buyer journey progressed.
The assessment highlighted weak product knowledge, slow or inconsistent follow-up, generic responses that did not address the buyer’s enquiry, and inaccurate or incomplete sales information.
In most cases, there was no meaningful brand experience and no clear buyer journey provided at all.
A Buyer’s Perspective
But there is another perspective that is perhaps even more revealing: the experience of a genuine buyer. Laura Bartlett recently shared her branded residences buyer journey experience, and it makes for interesting reading.
Editor’s Note: Laura’s article reflects her own personal experience and views, not those of BRESI. Whether her experience points to isolated incidents or a wider pattern is an open question, and one we believe is worth the industry paying attention to. BRESI has not independently verified the claims made in her article, and sharing it does not constitute an endorsement of the views expressed, nor a statement regarding the practices of any company named.
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