Key Outcomes
- Enhanced existing sales activity strategies with SLA-driven processes, improving efficiency, consistency and contact success across divisions.
- Achieved over 95% lead follow-up compliance, driving consistent sales engagement and timely customer contact
- Improved scheduling and utilisation of field-based technicians, creating greater efficiency and reducing operational costs
- Standardised processes across Barratt and Redrow following integration
- Improved root cause data for defects, providing greater insight into underlying issues.
- Maintained customer satisfaction performance during large-scale transformation
- Established a single platform supporting data-driven decision-making and future AI capability.
Buying a home is one of the most important and emotional decisions people make. For housebuilders, maintaining a positive customer experience throughout that journey is critical. Following the integration of Barratt Developments and Redrow, Barratt Redrow plc faced the challenge of aligning two large-scale housebuilding operations while maintaining customer satisfaction, controlling operational cost, and delivering consistent performance at scale.
By implementing a unified CRM platform in partnership with Crimson, the organisation has moved from fragmented systems and reactive processes to a more controlled, data-driven operating model—improving sales performance, increasing operational efficiency, and enabling proactive management of defects and supplier performance.
The Challenge
Delivering consistency across a national housebuilding operation is inherently complex, even before considering the integration of two businesses with different systems and processes. As James Nichols, Group Head of Customer Care, explained, achieving a consistent customer experience through people and process alone is extremely difficult:
"The experience should be consistent wherever a customer is buying, whether that's in Aberdeen, Exeter or anywhere else, but every interaction still needs to feel personal to them. Actually, delivering that consistently through people is really hard."
James Nichols
Group Head of Customer Care
This challenge was compounded by limited visibility across both sales and customer care. While teams were effective at managing issues that were clearly captured, data gaps meant that problems were often addressed reactively rather than prevented.
As a result, the organisation had strong operational capability in fixing defects, with opportunities to enhance the visibility and accessibility of root cause data.
Sales performance was supported by established standards across divisions, with improved visibility enabling more effective monitoring and consistency across a devolved organisation.
The technology itself also limited customer engagement. Legacy systems were not designed for flexible, real-time interaction, particularly during critical moments such as on-site discussions of upgrades and extras with homebuyers.
At the same time, expectations around customer satisfaction and industry standards changed. Customer experience is no longer judged mainly at handover, but across a longer period, using both early and later-stage feedback. Driven by the New Homes Quality Code (NHQC), the New Homes Ombudsman and industry surveys, this places greater emphasis on maintaining customer confidence over time.
The Solution
Barratt Redrow partnered with Crimson to deliver a unified Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform that would not only consolidate systems, but fundamentally change how the organisation operates. Crimson worked as an embedded partner, forming a single integrated team with Barratt Redrow and aligning closely with business stakeholders across sales, customer care and operational teams.
This “one team” approach was critical. It enabled the organisation to deliver both system transformation and business integration at the same time, within tight timelines, while maintaining live operations. Crimson’s focus was not just on implementing technology, but on helping the organisation embed new ways of working, ensuring that improved visibility translated into real behavioural change across teams.
A key principle of the programme was to embed established processes directly into the system, helping to ensure they were consistently followed and accurately recorded. As James Nichols explained:
“The CRM has been the driver… embedding our processes within the system so key activities are consistently followed and recorded.”
By doing so, Barratt Redrow moved away from relying on manual oversight and towards system-driven consistency across divisions. In sales, this introduced improved structured lead management supported by SLAs and real-time reporting, transforming how performance was managed. Crucially, according to Steve Mariner, Group Sales & Marketing Director, this visibility drove behaviour change across teams:
“The reporting visibility and dashboards have given us a much more stringent approach to lead follow-up. And because we’re constantly shining a light on this, we just know that it gets done.”
The platform also transformed how teams engage with customers. With a device-responsive system, sales interactions are now more flexible and responsive. This improves the customer experience, whilst also driving revenue through stronger engagement at key decision points.
In customer care, improved visibility and coordination have helped to streamline the scheduling of technician visits. With better insight into workloads and customer requirements, teams can plan and manage field-based resources more effectively, supporting operational efficiency and a consistent customer experience.
Perhaps the most significant change is the ability to understand and act on the root causes of defects. With a unified dataset, Barratt Redrow can now identify patterns in issues and link them to specific suppliers and subcontractors.
This allows the organisation to move beyond resolving individual defects and instead manage performance across the supply chain - using data to influence supplier behaviour, apply commercial pressure where necessary, and reduce issues at source. This has clear implications for cost control, quality and margin protection.
At the same time, improved system visibility enables teams to better manage customer perception throughout the lifecycle of an issue. Faster responses, clearer communication and ongoing visibility of progress help to maintain customer confidence, even where resolution takes time. This is increasingly important as satisfaction is measured over longer periods.
The Results
The transformation has delivered a fundamental shift in how Barratt Redrow operates.
Sales performance is now consistently measured and managed through SLA-driven processes. Internal estimates indicate adherence levels exceeding 95% in many areas.
Operational efficiency has improved significantly. Reduced scheduling effort and better coordination are lowering the number of aborted technician visits, removing avoidable cost and improving utilisation of field-based teams. At scale, even small improvements have meaningful commercial impact.
The organisation now operates with far greater consistency, with processes embedded into the system rather than enforced manually. This improves scalability and supports a more consistent customer experience across regions.
Most importantly, Barratt Redrow has moved from reactive issue resolution to proactive, data-driven performance management. With improved visibility into defect trends and supplier performance, the business can reduce recurring issues, strengthen supplier accountability and make more informed commercial decisions, helping to manage cost and protect margin.
Customer experience has also evolved. Teams are now better equipped to manage customer perception throughout the resolution process, maintaining confidence over longer timeframes even when issues cannot be resolved immediately. This reflects a more mature, lifecycle-based approach to customer satisfaction.
As Chelsea Parkin, CRM Product Owner, explained:
“As the customer portal is rolled out more widely, we expect it to provide customers with a simpler way to report defects, helping customer care teams reduce administrative effort and focus more time on supporting customers.”
The programme was designed to deliver £2.6 million in annual benefits through improved performance and efficiency, with reduced manual effort, improved scheduling, greater visibility and more consistent operational processes, creating a foundation for continued value realisation.
Conclusion
Barratt Redrow’s CRM transformation has enabled the successful integration of two large-scale housebuilding businesses while improving operational control, customer experience and cost efficiency.
By working as one team with Crimson, the organisation delivered a complex programme at pace, aligning business processes, embedding new ways of working, and maintaining performance throughout, while retaining its 5-star Home Builders Federation (HBF) status across the entire change programme.
Crimson’s ability to bridge technology, operations and people was critical to ensuring that the platform delivered real business impact, not just system change.
The result is a more controlled, data-driven operating model that not only improves performance today, but positions Barratt Redrow to continue evolving, reducing defects, improving supplier performance, and laying the groundwork for predictive, AI-enabled improvement across the customer lifecycle.
As Ade Brant, CIO at Barratt Redrow plc, summarised:
“We couldn’t have done this without Crimson.”
