Case Study 1: Property Investment

Hands-on Management From Any Location

Property, as Charta director Rod Neilson knows from experience, is a fickle business. youandi gave Charta the ultimate in flexibility, with a CRM database that could be affordably customised in response to market forces, accessed world-wide from a web browser and adaptable to a wide range of customer communications.

The Business Challenge

When Rod left Fletcher Residential six years ago to join Charta, the company didn't have a database. Familiar with how valuable a robust CRM tool could be, Rod began researching what was available on the market.

Why Charta Chose youandi

youandi's capacity to integrate and deliver the company's entire sales and after-sales service to Charta's several thousand customers clinched the decision. Charta markets its business as “no hassle” for investors. “All they have to do is provide us with their bank account details for the rent payments,” says Rod. “We do the rest.” Incubator put a successful case to Charta that youandi would be equally seamless in its ability to support the company on delivering that promise.

How youandi Benefits a Property Investment Company

• Access from anywhere. Because youandi is accessible from any web browser, our agents can work from Singapore if necessary, accessing and updating information. “The information all goes into one system so I can see exactly where we are in the sales process of any property,” says Rod.
• Setting access levels. Senior Managers have transparency across the entire database and can monitor the activities of their sales consultants. It's hands-on management of field staff from anywhere in the world. By identifying high achievers and tracking what they are doing right, that learning can be disseminated across the entire team. Consultants, whose desks are “on the road”, are restricted to seeing only their own information.
• Financial accountability to funders. Charta's property finance team can call up an instant snapshot of progress on projects, which offers its banking funders a higher level of business confidence and saves the company preparation time. Previously the data on their large inventory of properties had to be manually collated onto a spreadsheet.
• Regular customer contact. Investors need the reassurance that comes from being regularly informed. With some properties being two years in the development, you and i's task tool makes it easy for staff to set prompts to maintaining that contact.
• Integrated company-wide information. Incubator wrote an additional program for Charta that seamlessly exported updated property information for the company's telemarketers.
• Ease of use. “The database is very user-friendly,” says Rod. “We had people spread across the organisation from novices to highly experienced IT users. Incubator came in and carried out the initial training, then trained one of our staff to take over. You can get up to speed in as little as an hour.”