The estate and property sector is fertile ground for digital transformation strategies. Operating remotely or under a hybrid model is par for the course in this industry, so agencies that adopt a digital approach and an intuitive and accessible user experience are better equipped to support their agents. Onboarding a digital model to replace the pervasive legacy systems still in place at many property agencies is also fundamental to streamlining the customer experience.

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Property agencies that successfully combine both approaches – consolidating their user and customer journeys alike – will achieve enduring digital-driven business value. But what are the challenges and how do property agencies go about integrating these transformation strategies?

Legacy Systems: The Challenges

Over time, property agencies have collated and stored vast amounts of legacy or historical data on their workforce, shareholders, clients, and customers. Estate agents are familiar with this highly valuable resource and are skilful at accessing it to complete sales. But it’s becomingly increasingly difficult to maintain, improve, and expand on our historic data and legacy systems. There’s a whole host of challenges, including:

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• Surfacing and recording structured and unstructured data on legacy systems is time-consuming, costly, and prone to error.
• Under a legacy model, employees access the same centralised system but then rework the information they need for storage within their own siloed system. For example, conveyancing and finance departments may well need the same customer data, but will consume and formalise that data differently, with newly created assets such as reports or documents being duplicated and stored in siloed systems.
• Knowledgeable engineers and IT staff leaving the company are often replaced with a new workforce who aren’t as accustomed to the existing legacy systems, complicating software maintenance and updates further down the line.
• Outdated technology hinders the integration of new and innovative systems.
• Added to these challenges, legacy systems are often less secure and compliant, potentially compromising private and sensitive customer and client data.

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The end result is a limitation on how readily and easily estate agents can find and use compliant data and up-to-date information as and when needed, hindering the end-to-end customer journey and constraining potential new leads and sales. Meanwhile, the property agency must absorb the financial costs incurred from siloed and duplicated data, incompatible software, and increased risk.