Ohmyhome CEO Rhonda Wong on Building Trust With Customers Through Knowledge Equity

At CNA’s Leadership Summit 2023 – Trust Matters, Ohmyhome CEO Rhonda Wong joined the panel ‘Building Trust With Your Customers’ alongside fellow panellists Paul Burton, General Manager, IBM Asia Pacific, and Christopher Ong, Managing Director, DHL Express Singapore, to explore how business leaders can build, restore, and retain trust with customers in an ever-polarising world.

Trust is essential for any business to succeed, but more so in the property industry. As Rhonda shared with CNA’s Elizabeth Neo in this interview before her panel, Ohmyhome has consistently had the privilege of engaging with customers who, while initially cautious about the property transaction process, have come to place their trust in our property agents and the Ohmyhome team. This transformation is often a result of our commitment to delivering exceptional service and positive experiences, which has helped us build strong, lasting relationships with our valued clients.

Cultivating Trust: Our Journey to Becoming the Most Comprehensive Property Solution for Everyone

Ohmyhome was built on the foundation of placing customers first and winning their trust by providing access to transparent and accurate information that they need throughout their housing journey.

Having grown up in a migrant family in Singapore, Rhonda and co-founder Race Wong have an intimate understanding of the importance of housing as a lifelong asset and the utmost level of service that property agents need to provide. “That’s why we firmly believe in the power of knowledge equity,” Rhonda shared. 

With our next-generation Home Ownership Management & e-Valuation tool, or Homer AI, we provide customers with real-time information on their home valuation, the most recent transactions in their area, as well as their cash proceeds (for sellers) and affordability (for buyers), so that consumers can have access to the most accurate information at their fingertips, round the clock, allowing them to make the best decisions for one of the most important assets in their life. 

As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power, but knowledge shared is trust multiplied.”

Leverage the power of technology 

Early this year, the property industry was caught in a resurgence of rental scams by property agent impersonators asking customers for rental deposits from non-bona fide listings. This has caused thousands of victims to lose close to $4 million. 

As a property technology platform with thousands of users, we immediately put in place safety measures to ensure these scams don’t spread on the Ohmyhome app. We quickly implemented a digital identity verification system via Singpass for homeowners to verify that the property they are listing belongs to them.

As a result, all property listings on Ohmyhome today are 100% verified, with no duplicates. So property transactors looking to buy or rent a home can be confident they are talking to the real owner of the property they’re interested in. 

We can deliver and we deliver well

The aforementioned values and the measures we took have propelled us to be the most highly rated property transaction platform in the region, with a 4.9-star average rating on both Google and Facebook, according to over 8,000 happy customers.

Also on the panel with Rhonda were Paul Burton, GM of IBM APAC, who highlighted the importance of transparent and fair AI solutions to build trust, and Christopher Ong, MD of DHL Singapore, who reiterated DHL’s commitment to reliability, which is key to establishing trust with customers.

The CNA Leadership Summit was also graced by inspiring individuals from various industries:

Edwin Tong, Singapore’s Minister for Culture, highlighted the Ethnic Integration Policy’s role in promoting racial harmony in Singapore by ensuring a balanced population mix and addressing housing issues – something Ohmyhome’s agents have been helping with as well.

Lee Hui Li, Microsoft Singapore’s Managing Director, emphasized the importance of organizational culture to drive trust, where employees act as brand ambassadors promoting empathy and doing good to make a genuine difference. 

As the CEO of the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, Tony Soh stressed the significance of starting from purpose: and aligning it with vision, mission, and strategy to foster trust within the organization.

Pearlyn Phau, Group CEO of Singlife, emphasised that leaders must lead by example to build trust and encourage collaboration. 

Nicholas Lee, CEO of Ez Link, underlined the necessity of open and honest communication: creating a safe space for innovation, and the higher cost of lacking trust compared to investing in trust-building. 

You can watch the replay of CNA’s Leadership Summit 2023 – Trust Matters on this website.

We hope that by bringing attention to these key approaches by all the top businesses in Singapore, and even the government, other organisations will join the conversation on trust and continuously take steps to be trustworthy in all aspects of the word — not just in the products or services provided, but in that real, “sticky way”, as moderator Jill Neubroner said on the second panel, that customers can hold on to in times of crises. 

Find out more about Ohmyhome’s services here. And if you’re looking to buy or sell a home, drop us a message on WhatsApp to reach our Relationship Managers.