With 77,000 employees, and revenues in excess of $6.8bn, JLL is a global leader in the worldwide real-estate market. However, the business runs on a traditional real-estate model, with most transactions happening over the phone.
In 2018, Ekino became a key strategic and delivery partner for JLL’s ongoing, EMEA wide OnLine Market Program (OLM), and was tasked with transforming the brand from a classic broker model to a best-in-class digital model. My role was to head the UX and UI team with regards to the planning and execution of this ambition.
Agile, innovative and user-centric, we approached the project like a start-up within the existing business. Assembling a team of Ekino specialists to work alongside key business stakeholders, we defined principles for the following areas:
Business: generating new leads through a relentless focus on the customer journey
Organisation: building a cross-disciplinary team, with one space and one aim
Process: adopting an agile design methodology where all activity feed into both business and user objectives
Tech: building a future-proofed, automated, and scalable platform
Data: using internal and external data analysis to find the next business opportunity
The aim was to transform JLL’s technology, UX and organisational practices, and create one cohesive space. A space that supports not only prospect customers, but tenants and landlords too, handling all search, booking, and transactions in one place.
Phase one of the project focused on the brand’s existing lead generation and transforming search. We needed to create a seamless experience for customers, from the point at which they start their search online, up until they get in touch with a broker.
We began by doing a deep dive into the business and its target audience. Interviews with stakeholders and JLL brokers helped us understand the needs of the business and its employees while talking to office managers helped us learn more about the end user.
A clickable prototype explored a new, simple search journey, with innovative sorting and filter options. For example, for the first time, people could search by the number of desks in a space, or use a smart map interface that told them how many properties were available in each area.
One of the challenges we faced was balancing the existing look and feel of such a corporate brand with a more intuitive, more inviting style that would make a better experience for the end user. Working closely with JLL’s design team, we established new brand guidelines that would suit both the brand and the customer and tested them using high-fidelity prototypes.
Additionally, our agile approach allowed us to seamlessly deal with common global site constraints such as accessibility, GDPR, and browser limitations.
Through testing, iterating and optimising, we created a universal website that is adaptable and ready to stay ahead of the market.
The OLM provides the foundation for an omnichannel digital platform and is thus an ongoing, 3-year program of work. Our efforts have supported a board-level shift at JLL - digital is now not merely a cost structure, but a business opportunity for the future.