The Challenge
Consumers will not wait around for slow or cumbersome applications. And, in the high-growth property market, getting the right property information quickly and easily can be critical. Barfoot & Thompson needed a solution to integrate with its internal systems to make this information available – fast – for its agents on iPads.
The Solution
The company partnered with the Datacom team as the companies had enjoyed a long-term relationship. Barfoot & Thompson was also aware of our technical expertise in this area.
Our team developed a central platform that collates all mobile application related data into a central database from the many Barfoot & Thompson internal systems. The database is accessible via an application programming interface (API) and an iPad application.
This removes the need for the iPad application to integrate directly with the internal systems, offering highly effective performance and ready access to internal data. The platform updates information in two-way real time between the iPad and internal systems.
Many functions such as full index search, data security and notifications are developed in the platform. This reduces iPad development as functionality is developed within the platform.
Barfoot & Thompson agents now have a powerful, fast and consistent field sales tool – they can view details of any property in real-time. The application has been released into the iOS App Store, making a version available also to the ‘house hunting’ public as well as to agents.
As the project rolled out, the platform’s functionality was broadened to include all digital channels. Our team saw this as an opportunity to take the application to a higher level and extend it to be a central platform for online, social media and internet channels like TradeMe and Realestate.co.nz. This creates a single source of truth as well as allowing Barfoot & Thompson to create a similar user experience on both its website and mobile applications.
“Our primary objective was a great user experience, so very fast API response was critical. Datacom’s solution allows us to achieve this while giving us the ability to scale for growth.”
Stephen Barfoot - IT Manager, Barfoot & Thompson
Results
Mobile usage has more than doubled, growing from 11.4% in 2012 to 23.5% by 2013.