A deep discovery phase allowed AgencyQ to transform SABOR’s digital strategy using Sitecore's Digital Experience Platform and Sitecore Search, resulting in a 70% drop in content editors' reliance on developers, 15% growth in search and improved member satisfaction.
SABOR
Transforming Digital Strategy to Better Serve Members
The Challenge
The San Antonio Board of REALTORS (SABOR) is the largest professional trade organization in San Antonio, with more than 13,000 members. For nearly a century, SABOR has been a leading organization in the San Antonio community, the primary resource when it comes to finding a REALTOR® and buying/selling in San Antonio and the surrounding area.
SABOR came to AgencyQ knowing a redesign of their website was necessary but not all that would be needed to best serve the needs of its members and to position the organization as the go to resource for buying and selling a home in South Texas.
In many ways, SABOR came to us with the exact challenge we love to tackle: not just "make our site look better" or even "we need to modernize." They partnered with AgencyQ because they knew their overall digital business strategy needed to be reimagined in order to meet evolving needs and a changing landscape of REALTORS, home buyers and sellers. The needed to answer critical business questions such as:
- Are we relevant in today’s real estate market—to REALTORS® as well as home buyers / sellers? Do our members know that? Do end consumers?
- Are we too far behind the competition?
- How do we grow? How do we deliver more value, including leads, to members given their differing needs?
Facing competition from large online real estate platforms, SABOR's dated digital presence was unable to deliver the customer experience that site visitors expect or to drive the lead generation SABOR's members need. Additionally, the growth of online real estate platforms and of the iBuying trend created a need to highlight the value of REALTORS and of SABOR. Multiple platforms and disconnected processes were barrier to SABOR implementing an effective strategy and delivering value to their members.
The Solution
We started our work with SABOR with a deep discovery phase, led by our strategy and human-centered design teams. This included internal stakeholder interviews, customer interviews, voice of customer analysis, heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, analytics reviews, technical audits and other research activities. This gave us a deep understanding of how users are interacting with SABOR, where awareness needed to be generated and how to position SABOR against other online real estate platforms. We developed detailed personas, experience maps and empathy maps that would later inform our design strategy and roadmap for the website development. We also led interactive working sessions to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for SABOR that would help us recommend the right technology platform recommendation--Sitecore's Digital Experience Platform (XP).
We migrated and redesigned the SABOR site on Sitecore's XP platform, selected for its ability to deliver personalized content at scale, as well as support critical third party integrations with SABOR's MLS and member data management systems. We later expanded SABOR's use of Sitecore by adding on Sitecore Search, which could index various content sources, such as web content, property listings and member profiles.
The user experience strategy of the site was informed by the findings of the discovery phase, including the need to prioritize consumer education around the value of working with a REALTOR, and specifically a SABOR REALTOR. We implemented a component based design approach that would empower members of SABOR's communications team to manage content more efficiently without developer assistance. This would save SABOR valuable time and money. We also developed a robust taxonomy that would help deliver a better search experience and information architecture that relates content to increase session duration and overall stickiness.
The Results
Since the launch of SABOR's new site on Sitecore, content editors' reliance on development resources for content management reduced by 70%. Additionally, search usage grew by 15%. Member satisfaction with the website also continues to climb as SABOR's content quality and site functionality continues to improve.