Digital transformation VanWonen

“From the retail landscape, we have become used to the fact that anything can be bought or requested online, with just a click of a button. In the real estate sector this was not common practice. As part of our strategy, we, an innovative and proactive organisation, are committed to modern technology. This starts with our high-value customer journey,” says Miranda Venekamp-Brandt, Director of Marketing, Sales & Rental Operations at VanWonen.  
Wander Evers, Manager of Digital Innovation at VanWonen, has also been one of the catalysts from the start: “About six years ago, the digital landscape looked quite different. Because of our different take on things, we have made the IT landscape in our industry more customer-friendly. Our customers are looking for a new build house. Not a housing type or project; this seems like a small difference but it has big implications. We have taken this customer perspective into account in the design of our digital landscape. Our high-value customer journey is the cornerstone of our IT landscape because thinking differently gives us insight into our potential customer.” 

Personal portal via MijnVanWonen

“A fully digital customer journey, that’s what we wanted to create. Hence, our buyers and tenants have access to a personal MijnVanWonen environment in which they can view and arrange their housing matters. We continue to innovate this environment so that our customers can turn their house into a home online. Because we offer homes digitally and our customers are involved in the process from the pre-sale phase, we gain more insight into the preferences and needs of our buyers and tenants. From this insight, we are now working on contract variations, such as upgrades, within the MijnVanWonen environment to make things even easier for our customers.” 
In the process of building a new home, we are involved from A to Z. Home buyers have a lot of choices to make and various companies are involved in arranging this, such as a kitchen company and bathroom supplier. When everything about a new build house can be found in one personal portal, MijnVanWonen, it becomes much more convenient. In other words, one central platform in which all parties involved provide up-to-date overviews for the customer. This enables us to continue to work on further developments to positively surprise our customers during their high-value customer journey. We also measure the customer experience, by means of an automated system (NPS), so that we can quickly anticipate any changing customer needs.  

Customers get a grip on new build houses

Customers want to be able to view and purchase homes easily, also online. “That’s why our webshop method was completed last year; it gives people who are interested in buying a grip on their future new build house. People can easily add their preferred home(s) to a personal shopping basket and to their MijnVanWonen environment. This gives us relevant information about potential buyers at an early stage: what are they interested in and what are they not looking for. In addition, our website strategies have been developed in such a way that we can prepare a project phase within a few days. About five years ago, this used to take weeks, a considerable time saver if you ask me,” says Wander.  

The year 2022 marked a change in the housing and energy market, and people interested in a new build home often indicated that they found it difficult to gain insight into the energy costs of a new build house. “Together with our supplier, we developed an online energy calculator that enables people to see in one view what their annual energy savings will be based on an existing home versus a VanWonen new build home. This example shows that our different way of thinking works in our favour. The application was smoothly implemented in the current IT structure and visible to our customers on the relevant project websites,” Wander concludes.  
This digitalisation step is well aligned with our vision and the customer’s needs and we will keep developing in this area. By increasingly putting the customer in the driving seat. The idea is that our customers can customise their home. Anywhere and anytime in the customer journey. By harnessing artificial intelligence, to optimise our processes. By recognising trends, responding to them, by analysing and applying data, we can serve our customers in the best possible way.