Sunway Property has two main business goals: to provide a home for everyone and to do so sustainably. As the Master Community Developer, Sunway Property understands that the foundation of a successful real estate enterprise goes beyond bricks and mortar — it's all about building strong relationships with customers, stakeholders and the community at large. 

In order to build the innovative, sustainable communities that are at the center of its mission, Sunway Property first sought to improve how it engages with its customers. By partnering with Bird, the developer was able to rethink its pre-sales lead qualification process and post-sales customer service offerings.

The problem: Slow, opaque customer communications

The real estate industry moves fast, so timely communication can be the difference between closing a sale and losing a potential buyer’s interest. Sunway Property’s customer communications were lagging behind in this respect.

Slow response

“One of our key priorities was to improve customer response times,” said Heng Meng Yong, Head of Digital Transformation for Sunway Property. “We needed to get back to customers as close to instantly as possible, to make a strong and positive impression from the get-go, and show that we’re serious about responding to our prospects.”

Poor visibility

Sunway Property’s team also had poor visibility into their sales reps’ communications with customers. Customer communications were spread out across SMS, email, and a number of personal WhatsApp accounts, which made it difficult to track leads, customers, and sales – further complicated by the fact that the team had to manually gather and collate this information. 

“Overall, we lacked a proper 360 view. We didn’t know if sales reps actually responded to customers, when they responded, and how they talked to customers,” said Yong. “We wanted to better track communications to help our sales staff improve and to more accurately track where our customers are in the sales process.”

Little feedback

Another significant challenge was gathering genuine and honest feedback from customers, measured in Net Promoter Scores (NPS). The team collected this feedback manually, via pen and paper — which was both time-consuming and tough for customers to respond to authentically. Without a more streamlined, automated process, Sunway Property struggled to gather meaningful customer feedback.

The solution: Building a customer 360 view and implementing WhatsApp at scale

When evaluating solutions, Sunway Property had several requirements:

• Flexibility of implementation, especially flexible APIs, to retrieve data from various sources

• Compatibility with Webhooks for communications with all platforms

• Ease of use, with a clean user interface 

  
  

Previously, the developer relied on multiple disjointed communication solutions, including personal WhatsApp accounts, SMS messages, and a cheap but ineffective email tool. 

Now, they use Inbox and WhatsApp for Business, allowing them to scale their communications and track their messages in a centralized hub. WhatsApp has become their most effective communication channel, thanks to how interactive and easy it is for customers to engage with Sunway Property representatives through it.

Qualifying leads for sales reps

In order to use WhatsApp to its full potential, Sunway Property integrated the channel into its sales pipeline. For example, when the company launches a new property development and advertises it on social media, prospects are redirected to a landing page. From there, customers sign up via WhatsApp, where Bird immediately guides them through automated flows, asking qualification questions to register their interest in specific properties.

Once the lead is automatically qualified, Bird passes it to Sunway Property’s sales representatives via Inbox. There, a team member can pick up the lead and continue the conversation with direct, personalized communication, ultimately converting it into a sale.

Capturing customer feedback 

Instead of collecting feedback on pen and paper, an outdated method that was both cumbersome and difficult to analyze, Sunway Property now uses Bird to send WhatsApp messages immediately after customers leave an event.  NPS scores are gathered easily, securely and digitally, automatically integrating that data into their dashboards for real-time analysis. 

From here, they convert the leads into sales for their property developments.

They also plan to use Bird for "Post-Sales or Service" use cases, for example, when you live in one of their properties, you can use WhatsApp for concierge services or general support for the usage of your home.

The results: Faster response times and boosted conversion rates

“Customers are impressed with the speed we get back to them,” said Yong. “Ensuring they have a smooth end-to-end experience has had a significant impact on our overall success.”

Sunway Property’s strategic integration of WhatsApp into its sales processes has been transformative, evidenced by significant upticks in conversion rates and customer satisfaction. 

Customers who interact with the company via WhatsApp have a higher conversion rate than those who simply fill out a “Contact Us” form on their website. Recognizing these gains and the potential for even greater results, Sunway Property is investing further into WhatsApp as a communication platform.

Most importantly, their sales team has achieved its goal of decreasing response times – by an awe-inspiring 300%. Even outside of normal office hours, Sunway's use of Bird’s automated flows allows the company to continue responding to leads 24/7. This creates a “Wow!” effect for prospects and starts off their customer journey on a positive note. 

From pre-sales to post-sales

As Sunway Property looks to the future, the next ambitious step is to implement WhatsApp not just as a tool for acquiring customers but as a vital component of ongoing customer service.

Once customers transition from prospective buyers to homeowners, their needs evolve, but the expectation for quick and efficient service remains. By utilizing WhatsApp to answer frequently asked questions and address common concerns, Sunway will be able to deliver instant concierge-style support to homeowners. 

In terms of digital engagement, Sunway Property is the front-runner across the wider Sunway group, says Yong. And now, they’re looking to help the rest of Sunway catch up to their success. 

“We’re exploring working with other business units to see how they can leverage WhatsApp, too,” said Yong. 

About Sunway Property

Sunway Property is the property division of Sunway Group, Malaysia’s leading conglomerate with diversified interests that is listed on Bursa Malaysia and a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series. As a Master Community Developer, Sunway Property fulfills UNSDG 11, aiming to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Sunway Property builds, owns, and operates integrated townships and developments spanning over 5,000 acres across Malaysia, creating healthy, safe, and well-connected ecosystems for communities to live, learn, work, and play within. Sunway Property’s portfolio includes internationally acclaimed properties in Malaysia and abroad, including China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Singapore. For more information, visit http://www.sunwayproperty.com.

About Bird

Bird is an AI-first CRM for marketing, services, and payments. 

Our mission is to create a world where communicating with a business is as easy as talking with a friend. We power communication between businesses and their customers — across any channel, always with the right context, and on every corner of the planet. If you’ve ever ordered takeaway, returned a package, contacted customer service, or requested a login code, it’s almost guaranteed your interactions have been powered by Bird’s technology.

Our platform, our applications, and our APIs help businesses streamline conversations through their customers’ preferred channels — like WhatsApp, Email, SMS, Voice, WeChat, Messenger, Instagram - and build powerful and engaging experiences. Bird's out-of-the-box functionality and omnichannel expertise tips the scales for knowledge workers and helps them be productive right away, with tools to build great marketing campaigns, customer service experiences, or automated business processes.