How experience and cost savings go hand in hand

Hado Wonen is a general contractor in Belgium, guiding people through the build of their own home. Elise Dobbeleers and her husband Michael founded Hado Wonen in 2020, after their own build in 2017 turned out to be a stressful experience. Hado Wonen uses Ziggu to keep documents and client communication in one client portal.

• Sector: General contracting
• Country: Belgium
• Company founded: 2020
• Sister company: Planzz, a full-scale plan studio in Antwerp

In construction, chaos is sometimes hard to avoid. Contractors who cannot be reached, badly organised documents and a tangle of communication channels can make the building process complicated for clients and professionals alike. In this video, Elise Dobbeleers and Vincent Van Impe (Ziggu) share their thoughts on how clear communication and digital tools such as a client portal can bring order to that chaos.

Elise, co-founder of Hado Wonen and Planzz, explains how her own experience as a self-builder laid the foundation for their mission: creating structure and trust for clients. Below are the main points from their conversation.

What did Elise Dobbeleers’ own build teach her?

“It all started with our own build in 2017,” Elise says. Together with her husband Michael she took her first steps in construction when they built their own home. “We had to coordinate everything ourselves: finding contractors, drawing up plans... It was terribly stressful. The poor reachability of contractors in particular gave us sleepless nights.”

According to Elise it was above all the big uncertainties that made it hard. “These are enormous investments. People want to be reassured, but when you get no answer you start looking for help elsewhere, from family or friends, and that often leads to even more panic.”

It was that experience that inspired Elise and Michael to found Hado Wonen in 2020. They wanted a different approach: one in which communication and availability come first.

Why is being reachable both a strength and a trap?

Communication is a central theme in the conversation. Elise stresses how important it is to be available for clients. “Michael is reachable on WhatsApp almost all the time. Clients appreciate that enormously. It gives them calm and confidence.”

Even so, Elise recognises that WhatsApp brings its own challenges. “People send messages at any hour of the day, even late in the evening or at the weekend. That makes it hard to draw a clear line between work and private life.”

To solve that, the team is working on a communication guide. “In it we set out what counts as an emergency and when clients are best off getting in touch. That way we stay reachable, but we also protect our private lives,” Elise explains.

A client portal takes the other half of that traffic off a private phone: conversations sit on the project they are about, where everyone working on it can see them.

Where does the document chaos come from?

Alongside communication, managing documents is a challenge in construction too. Quotes, invoices and other important papers are often spread across different emails, WhatsApp messages and physical post. “Sometimes I have to search for hours for a document that was sent months ago,” Elise says.

Vincent asks Elise whether a client portal helps with the documentation chaos she describes. He points out how a portal can centralise all documents, so that both clients and contractors can find them again easily. Elise confirms: “Yes, that is enormously handy. Everything about the project in one place, which clients can still get to even after the works. That saves us an enormous amount of time and stops us having to look everything up again and again.”

What does Planzz add before the build starts?

Planzz also comes up in the conversation: an innovative studio in Antwerp where clients can see their building plans at full scale. “A lot of people find it hard to visualise plans,” Elise explains. “At Planzz they can literally walk through their future home. That reduces mistakes and gives them more confidence.”

Elise gives a concrete example: “Recently, after a visit to Planzz, clients decided to swap the kitchen and the living area. That kind of decision is better taken in advance than during the build, when it becomes much more expensive and complicated.”

Vincent sees the value for property developers: “Planzz gives clients the certainty they are looking for, especially at a time when people think longer before making a purchase. It helps them make up their minds faster.”

How does Hado Wonen keep work and private life apart?

Guarding a healthy balance between work and private life is a recurring theme in the conversation. Elise admits that this is sometimes difficult: “We take our work everywhere with us, even on holiday. That is why we are always looking for ways to manage our time better.”

According to Elise, clear agreements and digital tools such as a client portal are essential here. “If you organise all communication and documentation properly, you create calm for yourself and for your clients.”

What do clients want most from a building project?

The conversation ends with an important conclusion: above all, clients want trust and structure. “Whether it is about quick answers, clear documentation or a realistic visualisation of their plans, it all comes down to bringing calm to a stressful situation,” Elise says.

Vincent sums it up neatly: “A building project is never perfect. There will always be unexpected problems, but with the right communication and structure you can prevent a lot of frustration.”