A CX vision & smart city strategy for delivering extraordinary experiences; everyday

The Challenge

With ambitious growth through acquisitions, the business risked building fragmented experiences. 

A newly formed real estate developer in Abu Dhabi and the UK had ambitious plans to create places where homes, lifestyle, entertainment and smart city infrastructure all work together to build communities and cities that offer integrated living, fit for the future.  

They were acquiring and merging different businesses to make this happen. And each one has its own way of doing things. They needed to define what living in these communities should actually feel like from the start, with the customer as the anchor point. 

Engine worked with the Strategy and Transformation Director to use the customer to cut through the complexity and focus on what matters most.  

Together, they developed a group-level customer experience vision and strategy, then applied it to the residential buyer’s journey as the first step in bringing the whole thing to life.

Making the CX strategy work across the whole business

To fold existing capabilities and experiences from various business units into the group-level strategy, Engine put a detailed engagement plan in place to involve and co-create with stakeholders throughout the process. 

 
The ambition was for the group CX strategy to: 

• Design one central CX promise and deliver it in a way that customers would value. 

• Serve diverse customer groups –  investors, residents or visitors – as one 

• Develop a unified smart city ecosystem offering seamless, intuitive experiences at each touchpoint. 

• Deliver products and services that are distinct and on brand. 
  

Embedding brand promise and business ambition

To design a more focused experience, customers were grouped into service tiers based on their overall profile and value of investment. These tiers were brought to life using behavioural and needs-based insights, creating clear personas that helped us understand what different customers expect, prefer, and need. 

This understanding, combined with the brand and business strategy, shaped the foundations of the CX approach across the group. 

We defined a clear customer promise and experience principles that guided how the organisation would show up for customers. Applying these principles to each service tier revealed exactly what tools, skills, and processes were needed to deliver the right experience to the right people. Not over-serving some customers while under-serving others, but giving each group what they actually valued. 

From transition to transformation, applying the CX vision

In collaboration with the digital, IT and smart cities teams, we applied the CX vision to develop the future digital ecosystem - outlining how a seamless and connected living experience would be delivered across the home, community and city. 

This identified the critical technology enablers and strategic partnerships required to bring the vision to life.  We developed mini briefs and business cases for the group-wide enablers, showing the business and customer value they'd deliver.