Case Study: Agent Referral
Opendoor, a real estate platform, provides assistance to both customers and agents in the home buying and selling process.
While our initial focus was solely on sellers directly working with Opendoor, we recognized the opportunity to collaborate with agents. This partnership helps bridge the gap for customers who are hesitant about selling their homes online independently.
Documentation
After conducting preliminary user research, we recognized that we were missing out on opportunities for agents to refer if the customer was buying or selling in another state. I actively contributed in the project aimed at increasing Opendoor’s customer base.
THE CHALLENGE
Introduce referrals
Our objective in this project was to increase our customer base via agent referrals. By providing referrals to agents as a way to gain customers, we added an additional method for agents to work with Opendoor. It was important for Opendoor to focus on working with agents and providing them incentives for doing so.
Key objectives:
Enhance brand recognition and visibility
Maximize the number of homes sold to Opendoor
Foster positive relationships and trust with real estate agents
My role
I led the agent referral project between February 2023 and March 2023. Worked alongside 1 web engineer & 1 product manager.
Was working on the project from the beginning (research) to the end (launch).
This first phase of this experience was launched in May 2023.
PROCESS
Backbone
UNDERSTAND
Interviewed agents to understand their pain points and current workflows.
IDENTIFY
Identified core jobs needed to be done by agents.
EXECUTE
Conversations revealed their desire for Opendoor to make it clear how we are helping agents.
KICKOFF
How it started
Who
The primary end users were agents who wanted to refer clients.
What
We needed to provide a way for agents to easily refer clients.
Why
Agents wanted to refer clients to Opendoor but previously had been unable to.
Insights
Lack of understanding
Insufficient comprehension of the agent’s key needs
Friction
Needing more contextual information before moving forward
Education throughout
Introducing methods early in the top of funnel
DISCOVERY
Build trust early
Our design challenge originated from listening to agents we had been talking with. We realized that we had not provided a way for agents to refer clients to Opendoor. They had mentioned that referrals are a common practice in the industry and that they would utilize our services if we provided a method to do so.
After listening to our agents, we decided to introduce referrals as a means for agents to work with us. Through this exploration, we discovered that this was a great way for agents to handoff clients they were not able to assist.
DEEPER INSIGHTS
What are the current issues?
Prior to this project, our customers could only represent their client.
Our customers said that they wanted to refer clients to Opendoor rather than represent if their clients were buying or selling out of state.
Agents didn’t want to work with Opendoor because there was no incentive for them.
REFRAMING THE PROBLEM
Partner with agents
Our agents surfaced pain points around the inability to provide referrals to Opendoor.
“How might we better serve agents today?”
As a result, how might we improve the agent experience so they can refer their clients to Opendoor? Our proposal was to redesign the experience so it allowed agents to understand that we offered more than one method.
Redesign.
Introducing agent referral program
With Opendoor's referral program, agents now have the ability to refer clients that are unable to continue working with.
Proposed flow
HOW WE GOT THERE
Who did what when?
Questions asked
How do agents interact with Opendoor?
What key pieces of information are they trying to understand?
How will we scale agent relationships in the future?
Challenges
Balancing amount of information early in the funnel vs. later
Integrating into agent workflows
Convincing agents to work with Opendoor
PIVOTS
What changed & why
Email first
In the first release, we focused primarily on an email entry for agents to test impact.
In-depth details
Originally, we wanted to pull in a comparison table within the product but we decided to push it to an email since our hypothesis was that it would drive more engagement.
Balance
The product needed to equally focus on refer or represent, however we needed to flag that refer was a new feature.
LAUNCH
What did we learn?
Agent-focused
By revamping the flow, we were able to gain more customers by helping agents choose a method that worked for their situation.
Education
We increased adoption of the referral program by adding an education screen to the top of funnel.
Handoff
We needed to improve our handoff so we made adjustments to make communication between Opendoor, agent, and customer as seamless as possible. We also added additional FAQ’s to address agent concerns.
METRICS
What was the impact?
Introduced referrals
Through referrals, we were successful in expanding our client base by 10 extra contracts/month during our trial period.
Improve UX
We streamlined the user experience by eliminating redundant screens and emphasizing the advantages agents gain from our services, thus improving overall conversion by 2%.
Building trust
Upon realizing that they would earn commission solely through referrals, agents were motivated to maintain their partnership with us.