The Problem

In 2020 and 2021 the Preston Baker business was overwhelmed. We had more enquiries than we could handle and more phone calls than we could answer.

The only solutions that we could deploy were to hire more staff (who were getting more and more expensive) or to let service standards fall through the floor.

Fortunately in March 2020 I had started my partnership with Alex Rhodes. He had joined Preston Baker as CTO (Chief Technology Officer) to build our own CRM built on the Salesforce. This is the platform that has now become Greenhouse OS.

We built out a system of auto-responders that allowed customers to register themselves via forms and then pick a time in our diaries using a system similar to calendly. This enabled every digital lead to be automatically responded to and customers to choose a time in our diary, completing their transaction.

In the lettings context we got self-service to 52% of enquiries booking their own viewing and in residential sales to 37%.

It is important to point out that in my previous set up I had a team of 25 people doing prospecting and inbound call handling. I now have 5. We now have a much more efficient and scalable business. Each member of that team completes 50 outbound prospecting calls per day, as well as handling all the inbound leads and calls.

The Customer

The guiding principle of building a business is building a business which is customer-centric. Brands like Amazon have made this the centre piece of their strategy with radical results.

Why do we shop at Amazon? You can get anything you want, for a reasonable price, delivered to your door at incredible speed and efficiency. Sounds like a great proposition, which has led to it becoming one of the most successful companies in the world.

50% of the leads that are sent to agents are totally ignored. I am on all three of the major portals at the moment plus our own website.

The leads above are all property specific (ie about one listing) and all for residential sales. The key question I ask myself, is what was the intent of those potential buyers when they clicked on the e-mail agent button on Rightmove?

I don’t ask myself that question on the PB Site because it states “Book Viewing”.

The evidence is that they want to book a viewing, and that’s because 80%+ of them engage with an auto-responder which invites them to book a viewing.

With this in mind, we know that the customer wants to book a viewing and we put a barrier in the way that leads to 50% of these requests being totally ignored and we wonder why agents don’t have a great reputation.

The Paradox

When I have the discussion above with agency leaders, or get up on stage to bang on about it, I rarely have people who dispute the facts above. Why then are agents so slow and reluctant to make the change to self-service viewing booking?

It’s not just me, I know another major CRM that has this functionality but with a very low take-up. So here are some of the key objections you may be thinking about.

But what about tyre kickers?

Ah the tyre kicker! The people who are serial viewers who view everything and never make a purchase. I can think of a few of them in my career. But that’s kind of the point, a few. How many times did I or members of my team refuse to let Mr Jones book another viewing, challenging him on his timewasting tendencies? The very fact they became a serial viewer is evidence of the fact that very few agencies actually stop them viewing. Are these 1 in 100 people, reason enough to refuse the 99% the opportunity to view.

There are legitimate reasons to stop people viewing, in particularly in the context of lettings. We allow disqualification criteria that are configured as part of the listing, so if they don’t have the required income, they can gently be let down entirely automatically on fact based criteria.

As a final thought on this, let’s imagine we do go out on a few more viewings than we have done previously and meet with a few more customers offering awesome experience. This is facilitated by the fact that we have a more than 50% reduction in the time we are spending on lead handling.

I want control of my diary

You have control of your diary. You configure the times each of your teams is available for viewings. This can even be done by listing, when you are doing a block viewing event.

We also have a google maps integration to calculate travel time, how many negotiators do that?

In addition, we try to make it very easy for both negotiators and customers to know when we are already at the property or close by. Our Low carbon viewings are when we are within 15 minutes of the property, and guide the user to pick an appropriate slot.

What about business opportunities for valuations and mortgage appointments?

When a customer self-serves I believe they should always have a follow up call. This is both to put a human touch to the service, and also to follow up on business opportunities. This includes valuations, mortgage appointments and other similar properties. There is no doubt that AI will be able to replicate this very soon, but until that point it’s best practice.

The surprising thing we’ve found is that a customer is 15% more likely to book a mortgage appointment if they’ve self-served compared to if they have called in. This is because all of the data capture has been completed and the call can move swiftly in to the reasons for the move, the timeframes and how we can help them.

Operational Change

Introducing this system is more of an operational change that a technology change. This requires you and your business to change it’s working practices and mindset. That is why I believe that a lot of agents see the benefits in this process but then don’t implement it.

The most important aspect of running a self-service system for valuations or viewings is availability which requires a new approach to diary management.

The above is a report from my self-service dashboard which shows what happens to the percentage of people who complete a viewing booking depending on how many slots they can see in the next 7 days.

This difference of having 5 or more appointments available in the next days, compared to the customer having to wait more than a week for a time is 4x.

Final Thought

If you believe that customers should be sending leads which 50% of them get ignored and forcing customers to call their offices to give verbal instructions to make appointments then my approach probably isn’t for you. The good news is that you are in the majority.

If you believe that the customer is broadly like you and wants a quick and easy transaction and that would improve their favourability to your brand then this is for you. It is hard, and it does require change both from an operational and a technology point of view.

If you want to chat about how to make this a reality in your business, then drop me a message or book a time.