LCS streamlines UX research and boosts customer sentiment

London Computer Systems (LCS) is a leader in property management software, known for their flagship product, Rent Manager, a highly customized solution designed to meet the diverse needs of property managers and their tenants across residential, commercial, and specialized industries.

When LCS started building out their UX team, they faced an ambitious challenge: modernizing their decades-old property management software while keeping customers at the heart of every decision. With three hours spent analyzing each customer interview and insights scattered across multiple platforms, UX Lead Cheyenne Ward knew there had to be a better way. Here's how Maze helped LCS transform their user research from a time-consuming burden into a catalyst for product innovation.

In early 2023, LCS launched their UX team, determined to revitalize their decades-old flagship product and deepen customer collaboration. Backed by an enthusiastic C-suite, Cheyenne and her team envisioned a rolling discovery program to bring customer voices into the product development process. But turning this vision into a reality wasn’t easy.

“We were pouring hours into analyzing the data—up to three hours per call—and with 40 calls a quarter, it became a massive time sink. Even with all that effort, we often struggled to go beyond the surface and really understand the core issues our customers were facing,” shared Cheyenne.

These challenges created a bottleneck that hindered LCS’s ability to make customer-driven decisions at scale, ultimately delaying their efforts to create the kind of innovative and impactful improvements their leadership envisioned.

To overcome these obstacles, LCS sought a research platform that could centralize insights, consolidate workflows, and automate research processes. Their search for such a user-centric tool led them to Maze.

“Our director spearheaded the process, narrowing it down to Maze and one other software," Cheyenne explained. "Maze’s user-friendly interface immediately stood out, along with its interactive experience for participants. It felt fresh, engaging, and aligned with the kind of innovative research we wanted to do.”

During the trial phase of their evaluation, Maze quickly demonstrated its potential to deliver immediate value:

Convinced by these benefits, LCS selected Maze as their user research platform, setting the stage for a more efficient and impactful approach to UX research.

Just over two months after adopting Maze, the LCS UX team faced a major test: their annual user conference. Historically, the UX team relied on manual methods for gathering customer input at this event-which resulted in hours of post-event categorization and prioritization.

This year, backed by the power of Maze, the team took a more efficient approach. They designed unmoderated prototype tests for four major features, paired with follow-up survey questions. Attendees selected features of interest on a landing page and were directed to Maze studies where they could test and provide feedback in real-time. The response was remarkable–over 200 submissions in just three days, providing rich, actionable data.

“It was incredible to see customers dive into the features and immediately connect them to their real-world needs. Some of my favorite moments were hearing how they saw the value for their own businesses—like someone saying, ‘Oh, Joe, our maintenance guy, is going to love this,’” shared Cheyenne.

With Maze, the UX team could skip the time-consuming data wrangling and start refining features immediately. One feature, Bird’s Eye View, lets users upload property maps and link unit data for a visual representation of their information, like finding available units or seeing who’s behind on rent. Customer feedback gathered through Maze revealed the need for better visualization of multi-floor properties. This insight led LCS to expand the feature’s scope to include a solution for floor visualization, ensuring the tool met user needs more effectively.

Beyond their user conference, LCS rapidly scaled their continuous discovery efforts using Maze Interview Studies. The platform's AI transcription and highlights have completely transformed their discovery process. Instead of manually reviewing lengthy calls, Maze AI quickly identifies key insights, saving the team hours of analysis time. This has allowed them to focus more on uncovering the insights that matter, while Maze's interview scheduling and conferencing features ensure that the entire process is streamlined and efficient.

Maze has become foundational to LCS’s user research and product development strategies, fundamentally shifting how the team uncovers and acts on customer needs. Within months of implementation, the team is already seeing a big impact:

Looking ahead, LCS is excited to continue leveraging Maze as a catalyst for product innovation and customer satisfaction. They plan to dive deeper into usability improvements, using Maze's data to identify and address gaps in their features. By further integrating Maze into their product development process, LCS hopes to automate research workflows, enhance collaboration across teams, and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

When asked about what advice she’d share with others considering Maze, Cheyenne shared, “You won’t regret it! It’s an investment, but it’s something that’s going to free up your team to dive deeper into their projects and come up with creative solutions. Maze takes the guesswork out of understanding user problems, letting you focus on what matters most.”