Page 6 - Redbriik: Property and Lifestyle Magazine Summer 2019

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NOT ALL CLASSROOMS HAVE WALLS
WRITTEN BY
MARK ROSS
MARK.ROSS@REDBRIK.CO.UK
At Redbrik we try to be brave and challenge the conventional way of doing things. We have a passion for learning and seeking better ways of delivering great service.
On behalf of Redbrik, I recently visited Seattle, USA, with a pre-eminent group of industry figures from the UK and Australia, all of whom share the same belief that we can improve
our industry. What was so attractive about this trip was that we were not only going to discuss opportunities to make our businesses better but also visit and learn from some world class organisations.
These businesses have challenged
the status quo to grow, develop, and evolve. These are businesses that are not interested in short-term gain, but the belief that if you do things right, do things that solve people’s problems, you can be relevant and vital not
just now, but for a generation and beyond.
For those who only know Seattle from the sitcom Frazier, the city is home
to some incredible organisations. Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks and Microsoft to name just four that are headquartered in the ‘rainy city’. It
is a fascinating, dynamic place and one of my favourite cities in the USA. I fell for its charms when I was fortunate enough to visit on a family holiday as a teenager and, returning some 20 years later, the city that is framed by Puget Sound and Mount Olympia still gets me.
We did not go to Seattle to necessarily look at how homes were sold in America. That was of interest though, and we were excited to listen to and learn from Keller Willams Worldwide (the world’s largest estate agent by the number of employees). It was about more than that. It was about learning from how these incredible companies are solving customer problems, many of which customers weren’t even acutely aware of!
We visited the new ‘Amazon Go’
store to experience the future of retail. Amazon is setting new standards in everything they do. Who could have conceived delivery within an hour from an online purchase before Amazon Prime? Here’s how the ‘Amazon Go’ Store works:
You download an App to your phone and enter your Amazon Prime details. On entry to the store you scan your phone and then simply take what you like and leave the store. There is no queuing, no physical payment and your receipt is sent to your phone on leaving.
It’s brilliant and all Amazon have
done is use technology to take all the annoying parts out of the shopping experience. Extrapolating this idea,
we have implemented our own
online viewings request and valuation function into our website, so customers can request these services 24/7 at their convenience.
We know we still need to be a customer led experience and will always need to offer a human interaction. We need to advise, negotiate and solve problems for
our clients, and that cannot be automated. Surprisingly, Amazon is also showing that in this digital world they too are migrating to bricks and mortar stores. They understand that their brand needs to be both online and off-line. This is also in line with our own long-held views that you must have the best on and off-line exposure and experience.
Talking of physical spaces, we have always worked hard to create welcoming and carefully curated offices that allow us to interact with our customers and showcase our properties differently to the rest. But, what will environments need to be like in the future? We have a strong vision for our customer spaces. Like the seven amazing $30m Starbucks Roastery coffee shops around the world – one of which I was able to visit in Seattle – these need to be
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