As Demand And Growth Of Online Property Search And Services Increases
BRENTWOOD, TN – Most companies, big and small, have invested time, human resources and revenue in their online presence. In most cases it’s been the development of a standard website to project a firm’s brand, business, story and services. Depending on the budget – that online investment can run a few hundred dollars on up into the millions.
To further distinguish itself in the heavy web-based traffic of online real estate, home and Realtor searches and shopping… the mega real estate firm Crye-Leike has gone the extra mile – having its corporate web site ‘quality certified.’
The company’s website crye-leike.com has been evaluated by a global real estate association – Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE) – which deemed the firm’s crye-leike.com worthy of its quality certification designation.
“This provides an affirmation of the quality of Crye Leike’s website,” said Gurtej Sodhi, CIO & Corporate Executive Vice President for Crye-Leike, REALTORS. “Being compared and analyzed at a global level with all the other real estate websites around the world and achieving this certification provides us with a benchmark of our performance on a worldwide scale.”
In bestowing the company with its ‘excellence in corporate website’ certification, LeadingRE noted that Crye-Leike, REALTORS and its crye-leike.com demonstrate excellence in website design, functionality and execution.
Among the findings in Crye-Leike’s website evaluation by LeadingRE; crye-leike.com had a page speed of under 15 seconds, a home page load time of less than three seconds, under six seconds for a property detail page to load and no broken links. The site was found to have strong and consistent branding and good information for consumers on home buying and selling.
The evaluators were also mindful of how timely the company would be with a reply to a customer comment made through crye-leike.com. An evaluator noted that after sending an email at 9:20am requesting information – a friendly and personalized reply came back approximately an hour later. The evaluator noted, ‘Great Job.’
“As a customer, it is important to feel confident that the website you are using to collect information on – for one of the most important and potentially biggest transactions of one’s life – is comprehensive and feature rich,” said Angie Vandenbergh, Web Manager for Crye-Leike Information Technology. “We’ve enabled our visitors to have access to all the information they need as they go along this process of looking at homes and Realtors to match their needs. Having this global certification is a measure of the level of achievement of the website and a clear indicator to the customer that they are working with a quality company that cares.”
The website quality certification was only recently introduced by the ‘global group’ LeadingRE in 2009 as a means of recognizing and encouraging superior websites among it’s 600 member companies. Crye-Leike is one of only 64 initial applicants to earn the designation. The certification process reviewed every aspect of the site – and crye-leike.com met the LeadingRE high standards in eight key areas ranging from design and content to human interactivity to search engine optimization.
“A real estate company’s website plays an increasingly significant role with today’s consumers, who often go there first when considering buying or selling a home,” said Pam O’Connor, president/CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®. “It is thus critical to use this Internet medium to attract and engage consumers in a meaningful way.”
As if the new quality certification isn’t enough, Crye-Leike web managers and programmers are now undertaking the process of redesigning the current crye-leike.com and expect to launch a new look sometime in 2010. The company intends to maintain its quality certification by submitting an application to LeadingRE this fall and each year thereafter in order to maintain its designation status.
“It’s our goal and our promise to everyone who visits crye-leike.com that we will offer them a cutting-edge user experience with use of audio and video broadcast, exceptional visual elements, sophisticated core design, effective use of video content and features that engage consumers such as interactive maps, blogs, etc,” said Sodhi. “Crye-Leike consistently strives to enhance the features on the website and make available all those functions that will consistently improve the consumer experience on an on-going basis.”
About Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®
Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (www.LeadingRE.com) is a global real estate network comprised of over 600 of the best-known local and regional real estate firms. With nearly 5,000 offices and 150,000 sales associates in the United States and 35 countries abroad, LeadingRE affiliates sell almost $300 billion in home sales, representing nearly one million transactions annually. The network has #1 marketshare in more of the top 88 U.S. markets than any national brand, representing a powerful force in American real estate.
About Crye-Leike, REALTORS
Harold Crye and Dick Leike established Crye-Leike, REALTORS (www.crye-leike.com) in 1977. Today, Crye-Leike®, the Nations 6th Largest real estate company, has a network of 3,600 licensed sales associates based out of more than 130 corporate and franchise offices located through-out the nine-state southern region of Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Oklahoma.
Crye-Leike is a full-service real estate company offering buyers and sellers services in: residential and commercial sales, mortgage, title, insurance, business brokerage and investments, property management, development and construction, builder resources, REO bank-owned properties, relocation, auctions, and home services. In 2009, Crye-Leike attained a sales volume in excess of $3.9 billion with 24,983 homes sold.
