Ventas · Grupo Plaenge
A native mobile app that lets real estate agents focus on their clients while the product handles every calculation and bureaucratic step behind the scenes, from arrival to signed contract.
Closed app · only available to company employees.
Product goals
- 01Reduce operational effort of real estate salespeople and advisors during in-store service, shorter service time, higher sales numbers.
- 02Give salespeople and advisors mobility, so in-store service can happen from any location.
- 03Ease access to every working material, tool, and sales contract in a single place.
About the client
Grupo Plaenge is a leading Brazilian construction company, owner of the Plaenge and Vanguard brands, with 55+ years of experience delivering 64M+ sq ft across 515+ residential and industrial projects in Brazil and Chile.
Known for the highest construction quality and an outstanding service experience for its clients.
Initial briefing
The product started with my pair sharing the client's briefing: they needed to improve in-store customer service by reducing the time salespeople wasted on operational tasks, disconnected bureaucratic systems that were forcing sellers into a lot of unnecessary rework to close a deal.
Discovery and strategy (business)
To transform Plaenge's complex, bureaucratic sales process into a high-performance digital experience, I started with deep operational immersion. The approach focused on aligning Plaenge's reputation for outstanding service with the functional goal of reducing in-store service time by eliminating disconnected legacy systems.
To guarantee measurable impact, I defined success metrics upfront using the H.E.A.R.T. framework, establishing clear KPIs to track how the solution would eventually reduce bureaucratic tasks by an estimated 50%.
Discovery and research (users)
User research
To understand user context, pains, and needs, we ran both quantitative and qualitative research.
- Quantitative: Microsoft Forms survey with 26 responses.
- Qualitative: in-person interviews across 11 business units in 7 cities, 31 interviewees.
Personas & design sprint prep
We synthesised all research into personas and a user journey, mapping actions, touchpoints, emotions, tools, channels, and devices used during day-to-day in-store service.
We also put together a prep document to get the DB1 internal team ready for the Design Sprint.
Define, wireframe & prototype
Design sprint
Using the prep document, we compressed the sprint by 2 days. We ran it with a cross-functional DB1 team: 1 PM, 2 Product Designers, 1 Business Analyst, 1 Fullstack Dev, and 1 Solution Architect. The main focus was to look at the problem from different points of view and start building the solution concept together. This small group became the founding team of the product.
Main concepts
- Mobile app integrated with the CRM, tracking every in-store service and generating data for managers.
- Full offline functionality, no lost sales due to connectivity issues.
- Minimalist design reflecting the brand's elegance and sophistication.
- All tools unified in one place: Sales Books, CRM, Excel, Availability System, and Sales Portal.
- All information at the salesperson's fingertips, whenever needed.
First prototype concept
After the sprint, we built the first high-fidelity mockups and prototype covering all product functionalities, ready for usability testing and client presentation.
User profiles
- Hostess, customer search and arrival notifications to salespeople.
- Salesperson, full in-store service, with or without a customer present.
Main functionalities
- Alert sender (hostess only), customer search and creation, calendar view.
- Available units and product-fit by customer profile.
- Purchase simulator, default and customized payments.
- Full buying-offer flow, multiple products, garage picker, offer percentages, document upload.
- Sale-contract initiation with document upload.
User testing
Moderated tests
First usability test with 11 users from 7 business units via Lookback.io. Average rating at that point: 4.5 / 5. The client approved us to move forward.
Main learnings
- Improve semantic colors for available units, readability was an issue for some testers.
- Allow separate views for apartments and garages, customers often buy them at different times.
- Expand purchase-simulator customization options.
- Run deeper discovery on the buying-offer flow.
- Immersive discovery of the customer buying offer, from both business and user standpoints.
- Opportunity identified to explore allotment sales.
Next steps
While improving the purchase simulator, we started handing off to the dev team in parallel. From this point I became the sole designer on the product, forming a natural working pair with the business analyst, validating every scenario, business rule, and user value for each deliverable.
I adopted a Dual-Track Discovery approach: testing, documenting, and shipping items to the dev team while simultaneously discovering new ones through user interviews and usability testing.
Iterations
Available products, separating units from garages and deposits
Since each product type has different pricing calculations, custom date ranges, varying monthly values, and seller discounts, I designed separate flows for viewing and simulating them, even when a customer wants to buy more than one type at once.
In this phase, the business analyst and I started prioritising what would become the App Versions, defining final design adjustments and pushing forward with requirements documentation.
Purchase simulator
I expanded customization options: custom date ranges, varying monthly values, seller discounts. I created separate simulation paths for each product type. Given its importance to the core service flow, I ran an additional usability test via Lookback.io with 11 users.
Customer buying offer
I interviewed both stakeholders and product sponsors to fully understand the business rules, then mapped all existing scenarios into a user flow before wireframing.
Given the complexity, I ran a moderated usability test using Maze, generating both quantitative and qualitative data with 18 users. Result: the buying-contract time was reduced by 90%.
New, allotment research
I ran a new round of user interviews to understand the allotment sales context. Key findings: this product type is driven by scarcity and urgency, has a faster purchase flow with less simulator customization, and follows different pricing calculation rules. I documented all learnings and first mockups to hand off to the new design team taking over the product while I moved to a new client.
Handoff, follow-up & iterate
Official handoff
For each completed functionality, I ran a final presentation with the dev team (frontend, backend, QA) and the business analyst before coding started. All behavior documentation and flow conditionals stayed in Figma, screen links, toasters, messages, edge cases, so we had everything in place before development began.
Co-creation workshops with frontends
I ran co-creation sessions with the frontend team, part brainstorm, part design critique, to surface technical constraints early, empower developers to bring suggestions, and build a closer working relationship between design and engineering.
Usage metrics
To keep track of user behavior on the app, I defined the product analytics strategy using the H.E.A.R.T. framework and created full event-tagging documentation for the dev team to implement on Firebase / Google Analytics 4.
Results
- Selected as one of 3 DB1 client products to receive CMMI certification by the Quality Department.
- Bureaucratic work time in the full in-store service flow reduced by at least 50%.
- Overall in-store service time reduced by around 65%, measured by both tester perception and stopwatch timing.
- Buying-contract time reduced by 90% after the customer-buying-offer redesign.
- Average usability rating across all tests: 9.3 / 10.