The challenge

Sigma needed to make sure all customers received the same high-quality, streamlined rental experience. This had become harder to create and monitor as the company’s portfolio expanded to cover a wider geographical region.

Sigma looked at various review sites, but most focused on collecting reviews for an entire brand or company. Sigma needed a platform that collected reviews for each development, so they could track and understand issues, and propose specific improvements at a regional or development level.

Sigma outsources elements of its business and wanted to gain as much transparency as possible to understand how different partners were performing.

The HomeViews solution

Sigma Capital chose to partner with HomeViews due to its verified reviews and development-level data – something not offered by other review sites. These allowed Sigma to understand how Simple Life teams across the UK are performing and to identify issues and potential solutions for regions or specific developments.

This has also helped individual staff members to gain greater insight into their area and its performance, thereby increasing a sense of ownership. Review feedback creates an incentive to improve services offered to residents, which in turn leads to more positive reviews.

Sigma had previously experienced review sites as a means for customers to lodge complaints. However, the more comprehensive review structure on HomeViews allowed for both positive and negative feedback around key areas of the lived experience, including facilities, design, location, value and management.

Sigma also uses HomeViews data for competitor analysis, giving them benchmarks to better understand how they’re performing compared with both the BTR and for sale market.

The result

Sigma’s Development team is drawing from resident feedback to inform specification and product, while Asset Management can better understand maintenance issues and aligning with customer expectations. Customer Services gain strategic information around contacts, resident expectations, and pinch points in the customer journey, and are also able to share positive feedback and reward good performance.

Vicky Fryer, Marketing Director at Sigma Capital, summarises the benefits HomeViews has brought to their teams:

“While other review websites are often only used by customers to leave complaints, HomeViews has given us detailed, balanced feedback on all areas of the customer experience. We can see how our different teams are performing across the UK, identifying themes by areas and developments, which we are unable to do on other review websites.

“This gives our teams more insight and a greater sense of ownership, driving motivation to maintain good reviews or improve where needed.

“HomeViews also helps us to understand how we are performing compared with the rest of the BTR and for sale markets, including specific Single Family sector benchmarks. In addition, listings on HomeViews have increased our number of leads, particularly for London developments.”