Unlocking the Rebuild. Optimising the Simonds Knockdown Rebuild Digital Funnel
How Sonar tested the Simonds knockdown rebuild journey with real customers and turned observed friction into a prioritised website improvement roadmap.
The Challenge
Simonds wanted to understand how well its live website supported people considering a knockdown rebuild.
Sonar tested the journey with a number of prospective customers through moderated remote sessions and via two realistic tasks. Everyone could eventually find information and a way to make contact, but the sessions exposed hesitation between home-design inspiration, practical feasibility guidance and enquiry. The research gave Simonds a prioritised improvement roadmap grounded in observed customer behaviour.
People considering a knockdown rebuild rarely begin with the process itself. They begin with the home they want, then test whether it can fit their block, budget and circumstances. On the Simonds website, much of the practical KDRB guidance lived on a separate landing page. Customers who began with designs and floorplans could progress a long way without seeing information about suitability, demolition, additional costs or the right person to contact.
Simonds needed evidence from real customers to understand whether the recently improved website was supporting this journey, where friction remained and which changes would make the next round of optimisation most useful.
The Research Approach
Sonar ran a number of moderated remote sessions with people who had direct experience of, or active interest in, knockdown rebuild. Each participant completed two think-aloud tasks on the live Simonds website, supported by interview questions and structured follow-up ratings.
- Task 1 asked participants to find information that helped them understand the knockdown rebuild process.
- Task 2 asked them to find the best way to make an enquiry or get personalised advice about their project.
- The analysis combined task responses, session transcripts and observed navigation behaviour so reported ease could be compared with the moments where people hesitated.
What Customers Did
The clearest pattern was that customers started with designs, floorplans and display homes. They wanted to imagine the finished home first. Practical questions followed immediately: whether the design suited the block, what demolition and site work could add to the price, and how the wider process would work.
That behaviour exposed a gap between reported ease and actual wayfinding. All participants rated finding KDRB information as easy or very easy, yet five felt unsure where to click at least once.
A number of participants needed some effort to find property-suitability information. Contact options were easy to locate, but four said the form asked for too little information and four did not find the next step fully clear.
The Core Insight
Customers were balancing two needs throughout the journey. The experience had to inspire them with a home they could picture themselves living in, then provide enough practical detail to prove that the idea was realistic.
It also had to stay simple while people were browsing, then give them more detail when they were ready to decide or speak with Simonds.
The Outcome
The study gave Simonds a clear baseline for the live KDRB journey and a prioritised set of improvements tied to observed behaviour. Rather than treating navigation, content and enquiry as separate issues, the roadmap connected them around the way customers actually make decisions: begin with the home, establish whether it is feasible, then contact Simonds with enough context for a useful conversation.
The same program structure can support ongoing qualitative testing of future website changes, including concept and prototype validation before development.
Why It Worked
The research tested the live website through realistic tasks instead of asking customers to comment on pages in isolation. Moderated think-aloud sessions showed what people did as well as what they reported.
The individual journeys could then be compared against structured task ratings, giving Simonds both the detail behind each problem and a clear signal of which issues appeared repeatedly.
