In the changing face of real estate shopfronts, Brisbane’s Kindred Property Group has come up with an innovative VR solution set to make the customer experience more convenient than ever.
While other agencies ponder the question, ‘to shopfront or not to shopfront’, Kindred instead asked themselves, “how do we transform shopfronts to bring them into the new decade and meet customers’ genuine expectations and needs?”
Their answer was to open a retail store in one of Queensland’s largest premier shopping centres, equipped with a custom-made world-first virtual reality experience for viewing property.
Kindred Property Group CEO Josh Kindred said this new delivery of real estate services is not only being received as more convenient by customers, but being praised for innovation with the addition of the virtual reality experience.
They’ve dubbed the experience ‘virtual real estate’ as it allows anyone interested in rentals or sales to conveniently ‘walk’ through as many properties as they wish from the one location: their local shopping centre.
“Westfield North Lakes has over 12million annual customer visits, so to say it’s a high foot-traffic area would be an understatement,” Mr Kindred said.
“However, for us, it wasn’t about the exposure at all. It was about putting our customers’ best interests first and taking the traditional shopfront to a new frontier by creating a new experience for our customers.
“We’ve been serving the North Brisbane area for close to 12 years now across our numerous offices and have listened to what our customers have been saying about the real estate industry.
“They want more convenience and a more responsive service. So, we changed things.”
While the new location has played a part in people engaging with the real estate group, Kindred Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Lyngcoln said the virtual real estate experience is also drawing significant interest.
“We have people walking in and asking what we’re about,” Mr Lyngcoln said.
“The virtual real estate stations located in this retail environment allow multiple customers to view countless properties at their own leisure or supported by one of our Customer Care Team members.
“It’s a solution we’ve custom-created in-house with a team of software and virtual reality experts to create more accessibility for our customers.”
Mr Lyngcoln said in the first week of their soft opening – before they had even finished their signage – they had far surpassed the amount of walk-in traffic they would have received in a year at their previous location.
“We’ve received tenancy applications, appraisal requests, and best of all, have been able to authentically engage with our community and provide them with real estate support on their property journey,” he said.
Mr Kindred said the move was only the beginning of the company’s plans for the future.
“We believe that to remain relevant in a new world, we need to look at real estate differently,” he said.
“We need to consider what our customers want and how we can best serve our communities.
“For us at Kindred Property Group, this is the first of many changes to create an entirely new experience for our customers.”
