For greater ease of use, for client and company alike

Eribo is a property developer and contractor in Waregem, Belgium, building mainly apartments. Eribo uses Ziggu to guide buyers from the purchase decision through to delivery. Since 2019, 25+ Eribo projects have run through the customer portal, with 600+ buyers in it. Approved quotes are signed in the portal instead of on paper.

• Sector: Property development and residential construction
• Country: Belgium
• On Ziggu since: 2019
• Projects on Ziggu: 25+
• Buyers in the portal: 600+
• Used for: Documents, Conversations, Decisions, Client updates

This story is based on an interview by Gerrit De Goignies, published in Digital Construction Magazine (Embuild). Read the original article.

Why does communication decide an Eribo project?

Eribo does not stop at building. The company develops, builds and sells its own residential projects, and it stays with the buyer through execution, finishing and final delivery. Thirty years of experience as a contractor sit behind that, combined with a developer’s view of a project.

A buyer who follows their own apartment from purchase deed to key therefore has questions for years, not weeks. Eribo decided that those questions belong in one place rather than in a mailbox, and put a customer portal in front of them.

What does a buyer find in the portal?

Plans, deeds and documents, in one location, and the choices that still need making.

“Ziggu’s customer portal came about for our clients’ convenience, and for our own,” says Ella Castel, customer advisor at Eribo. “It works intuitively. You do not need training for it. The average client handles it easily. The big advantage is that the client finds all the plans and deeds in one location. More than that: the client can make execution choices through the portal as well.”

Ella Castel trained as an interior designer before she moved into client guidance, which shows in how Eribo runs the choice moments: the buyer decides in the portal, not in a mail.

How does Eribo keep track of decisions?

Every element of a home has its own decision status. The portal shows what has been settled and where a knot still needs cutting, with progress per element expressed in percentages and drawn as bar charts.

Approved quotes are handled there too. A buyer no longer has to come in and sign a document on paper, which removes a trip for them and a chase for Eribo.

Subcontractors can be added to a project as well. They see the decisions that concern their own part of the work, and nothing else.

What changed in the mailbox?

Fewer emails, and an end to searching through them.

“Thanks to this portal, far fewer mails go back and forth,” says Ella Castel. “The client and the company no longer have to dig the information out of a disordered tangle of mail messages. Every conversation between client and company is recorded in the portal, and specific information is easy to find back in those conversations too.”

Pieter Vandewiele, managing director at Eribo, leads the development side of the business. The portal is the point where his projects and Ella Castel’s buyers meet: one dossier per home, from the purchase decision to the day the keys change hands.