Countrywide looks set to close its sales support office in Cheadle, Cheshire.
According to a leaked internal email sent yesterday, which appeared to be genuine and which EYE has seen, “colleagues at the Sales Support Centre in Cheadle” were told on Monday that Countrywide proposes to close the office “later this year”.
The announcement, from Sam Tyrer, signing the announcement as managing director of Retail & London, says:
“We are committed to maintaining a strong and sustainable business, based on the solid principles of putting our customers ar the heart of what we do, and ensuring that we make the most of our people and our assets.”
“In line with this, we have been reviewing the existing support centre and back office functions provided across various parts of the Grou;.
“Yesterday we informed colleagues at the Sales Support Centre in Cheadle that we propose to close the office later with year, with various teams relocation to other sites.
“Cheadle is not used to full capacity, so keeping it open is expensive, and the building also needs significant investment.
“We have other offices within the business that have bigger capacity and better facilities, and it makes sense to put these to their full use.
“We won’t be releasing any further details at this time as we are going through a formal consultation with our colleagues who may be affected by the proposals.
“In the meantime, there are no changes to the current services provided by our colleagues in the Sales Support Centre.
“Further information will be made available once the consultation period has been concluded.”
In December, Countrywide said that the sales support office in Cheadle would be hit by redundancies, with a “high proportion” of admin tasks outsourced to an un-named third party.
However, that email also said: “It is proposed that more complex administration tasks will be retained in Cheadle along with a small team.”
If the notice we have now been sent is indeed correct – and we are checking with Countrywide – it now appears that the Cheadle operation will be closed altogether.
We will of course publish Countrywide’s response as soon as we get it.
There are some very interesting, and unusually mixed, employee reviews here:
https://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Countrywide-Estate-Agents/reviews
As a consequence of the launch of their £995 retail offering are CW also expecting traditional estate agents to do contract chasing for them?
Does retail actually mean an over the counter service?
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Interesting to read the reviews and to note that almost every one of them contains glaring errors of spelling and grammar. What do they teach children in school these days?
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Is that dislike because you are:
a) A teacher
b) A child
c) Someone wot finks spilling and grammer ain’t worf nuffink these days?
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The race to the £995 offering appears to be a knee jerk panic reaction which undermines most of the rest of their business. Surely they would have been better fighting the corner of ‘full service no sale no fee’ sales?
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This is exactly what all our marketing now says in big letters.
‘No Fee’
That’s right we don’t charge you any upfront fee, just a fair commission, based on how well we have performed.
It kind of makes sense really.
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“We are committed to maintaining a strong and sustainable business, based on the solid principles of putting our customers at the heart of what we do, and ensuring that we make the most of our people and our assets.”
……………….so we’re closing our Sales Support Centre, getting rid of all our industry experienced management team, shutting a load of offices and are now offering a low level of service online option at a cut price fee that will earn the staff pence in commission.
Way to go.
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Would have thought they would need a call centre if they are going to be online solution…
They need an old school boss who is mortgage/ insurance led to kick some life back into countrywide…they have gone soft…
The Billions of £ they lost by not being negotiable on their fees in the 2000’s is now a total waste.
They seem to have lost their bottle…get nasty or get out.
i.e. Get your office open, get 2 people in them and start selling again, not retailing.
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Imagine working for a company where your office is refered to as a “unit” and despite years of successful experience you see a roadblock to your route to the top .Watching seasoned property professionals ignored for the top jobs. Industry outsiders with no property training moving in. I call that a real kick in the teeth
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