PGH Bricks Visualiser

PGH had a customiser but the rendering was very basic and it didn't provide a realistic impression of what the bricks would ultimately look like on a home. Images were flat and could not be customised or viewed from different angles. This led to a situation where people would be sent off with a map to view houses built with their chosen products – creating a disconnect in the customer journey. The brief was to provide something that was cutting edge – something that would feel realistic enough to give home builders the confidence to select products without seeing them in situ.

The result was a web-based customisation tool built on state-of-the-art 3D rendering technology, with virtual reality capability. The Visualiser is not the first online product customiser, but its use of VR takes it to a level of immersiveness that is unprecedented for a product of its kind. Users can customise bricks – including style of brick, bond pattern and mortar colour – as well as customising other features such as roofs, guttering fascias, garage doors, pavers and feature walls. VR closes the gap between imagination and reality, bringing the customer as close to the real house as possible without actually building it.

Due to the substandard experience of the old tool, customers would be sent away to look at houses to see what bricks would look like. The Visualiser keeps customers within the PGH environment, thereby streamlining the path to purchase. It has also dramatically increased end-user engagement. A comparison of the 2.5 months pre- and post-launch revealed that the average session duration on the website increased from 1.36 mins to 4.47 mins; the number of users more than doubled, sessions jumped by 76.9%, and page views went up by 101.9%.

Other key features of the Visualiser include: - content-managed design, alleviating the need for PGH staff to rely on developers to make content changes - integration with Pinterest and Instagram, with easy social sharing capability - unlike most existing customisation tools, the Visualiser is housed completely within the main site, so there’s no aesthetic or functional disconnect - the capacity to generate a custom moodboard - the capacity to instantly generate a PDF with product information, product availability and the location of the nearest Selection Centre.