Customer Solution Case Study
/ Property Site Provides an Interactive Home-Buying Experience with Mapping Solution
“Location is high on the list, if not the most important factor to most buyers. They want to know where a property is...If we didn’t have mapping on our site we’d lose people as soon as they clicked on.”
Alex Bailes, Online IT Director, Countrywide
When Countrywide property services created a new online presence, it wanted to give home buyers rich interactive experiences that they found engaging and kept them coming back. It turned to Microsoft solution Bing Maps for Enterprise and United Kingdom (U.K.) mapping agency Ordnance Survey to connect the most up-to-date geographic information possible with interactive features. Now customers can easily see the location of houses and the amenities surrounding them.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published August 2011
Business Needs
Countrywide property services is the largest estate agency group in the U.K. Starting as a traditional estate agent, the company has grown steadily, and, in 2000, it became one of the founding partners of rightmove.co.uk, a property portal that works with estate agents to advertise their listings. When Countrywide relinquished its shareholding in rightmove.co.uk, it had no significant online presence, so in 2009 the company launched propertywide.co.uk to address the needs of home buyers who usually start their searches online.
To provide the best customer experience, executives at Countrywide knew they needed as much detailed geographic information as possible. Alex Bailes, Online IT Director at Countrywide, says: “Location is high on the list, if not the most important factor to most buyers. They want to know where a property is and what the surrounding area looks like. If we didn’t have mapping on our site we’d lose people as soon as they clicked on.”
Bailes and his team approached U.K. mapping service Ordnance Survey for access to the specific geographic information needed. The next step was to find a mapping solution to bring all the information together in an easy-to-use way that would encourage customers to keep returning to the Countrywide property portal.
Solution
After briefly considering Google Maps, the IT team at Countrywide decided to develop the site using Microsoft mapping solution Bing Maps. Bailes says: “We’ve worked with Microsoft for years and have a strong relationship with our account managers there. We knew that if we had any questions, we’d get a good service at Microsoft. Bing Maps is the only mapping solution fully licensed to use the breadth of information available from Ordnance Survey—this was another key factor in our decision.”
Working with Microsoft and Ordnance Survey, the team deployed Bing Maps on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. From proof of concept to launch, the development took six months. Linked with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data management software, the solution integrates seamlessly with Ordnance Survey data sets, defining the boundaries of towns and cities and their geographical coordinates. “We couldn’t do that if it wasn’t for easy access to data through Microsoft SQL Server. We can draw the information we need, such as the shape of a town, to reflect the way it looks in the real world,” says Bailes.
Now, when users search for a property, they can zoom in and look at a specific area, or see all the properties they’re interested in on a single map. Bailes says: “This gives our customerscontextual awareness of where the property is located. With the Bing Maps Bird’s Eye view photographic images, users can see what individual properties look like, including the garden and the house next door. This is the information people need when they’re buying a house.”
Benefits
With streamlined integration with the infrastructure at Countrywide, Bing Maps is easy to deploy and customise as needed. The detailed imagery, including Bird’s Eye view and Ordnance Survey boundaries for cities, counties, and other geographic locations, provides the rich user experience customers want when searching for a home.
- Accurate address details improve service. By combining Bing Maps technology with data provided by Ordnance Survey, Countrywide offers the most accurate address information available online. David Ball, Business Development Manager at Ordnance Survey, says: “With Bing Maps, Countrywide is giving users a further level of detail using the most accurate and up to date address information. For example, instead of giving you an approximate location of where the property is, our address data gives you the coordinates of the actual property itself.”
- Rich imagery enhances user experience. Aerial photographs provided by Bing Maps combine with Ordnance Survey data to create a rich interactive experience that draws users in, encouraging them to stay on the site and return to it in future. Visitors to the site can search by postcode or specific address to look at a property and see how close it is to amenities, such as schools, parks, shops, and transport.
- Easy customisation simplifies personalisation. Bailes says: “The flexibility that Bing Maps offers us is unparalleled. It’s considerably easier and quicker to build a customised experience, which sits nicely on our site—for example, we can create our own graphics showing different points of interest.”
- Streamlined integration speeds up delivery. “Bing Maps doesn’t require a Microsoft infrastructure on which to run. But if you happen to use Microsoft solutions already, nothing on the market surpasses the way Bing Maps integrates with Microsoft data management applications. We couldn’t have launched our site as quickly or as cost effectively without Bing Maps,” says Bailes.
“Bing Maps doesn’t require a Microsoft infrastructure on which to run. But if you happen to use Microsoft solutions already, nothing on the market surpasses the way Bing Maps integrates with Microsoft data management applications. We couldn’t have launched our site as quickly or as cost effectively without Bing Maps.”
Alex Bailes, Online IT Director, Countrywide
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published August 2011