Turning Searching Visitors into Happy Visitors

Nykredit is one of Denmark's leading financial services companies, and Nykredit Mægler operates and develops four real estate agencies: Nybolig, Estate, Nybolig Business and Nybolig Agriculture. Nybolig is one of Denmark's largest estate agency chains with over 220 stores across the country.

The websites nybolig.dk and estate.dk had a long legacy and reputation. Owned by the main players in the real estate market, the sites didn’t have a lack of relevant visitors either. But the technology was a little outdated, just like the design and the content on it. Even more importantly, the websites focused on the brokers—not so much on the users. In a time where customers can decide to move on to the next supplier in a split second, this puts your business behind. Nykredit wanted to do something about this, and they wanted it fast.

Valtech proposed a solution that moved the focus from the brokers’ goals to the users’ needs. We won the pitch and had three months to deliver an entire new solution. The main KPI? A clear increase in the number of ordered sales evaluations (on broker pages). And they wanted visitors to take action by clicking on "book viewing of property," or "download property details," or any of the other links inteded to get the user to contact them. 

In order to ensure the project hit the intended KPIs, we knew that creating a platform with the end users' needs in mind instead of one dedicated to the brokers' goals was the only way forward. Afterall, you can't influnce a customer's actions by focusing first on the provider's needs. 

We used the Core Content Model—a standard in the industry—to restructure and prioritize the main content areas. Then, we added a "digital voice" to the various call-to-action elements such as the "contact broker" buttons.

By adopting this more contemporary digitally-native language, Nykredit Mægler moved away from solely serving the brokers’ business goals and placed the users’ needs centre-stage. We built intuitive forms and an effective and easy to use search function. This all came wrapped in a brand new design, designed in the browser, corresponding with the two different brand platforms.

The road from concept to implementation lasted a mere three months. The Sitecore-based platform that Nykredit Mægler now uses, is futureproof for new initiatives like personalization and marketing automation. It is also easy to integrate with other systems. And whether the KPIs on user metrics were met, is best judged based on the plain numbers measured after the first three months:

• Book property viewing: +63%
• Download property details: +30%
• Place bid: +12%
• Contact broker: +823%
• Order sales evaluation: +25%

Furthermore, the bounce rates, indicating how many users click away immediately, are significantly lower. Instead of returning to the generic search portals where most users start (and continued) their search, visitors now continue their search on the client's website.

And this is only the beginning. Nykredit Mægler has expressed an eagerness to get even more out of conversion optimization, together with Valtech.