A high street agent has unveiled a new website which offers the public online services.
The agent, Whiteknights, in Reading, Berkshire, says it firmly believes it has successfully bridged the gap between a traditional estate agency service and the demands of today’s internet society.
Sellers and landlords can book valuation visits straight into the agent’s diary without having to speak to anyone.
The system also allows would-be buyers and tenants to book viewings directly online.
They can also book multiple viewings, which can be added to a viewing cart.
Whiteknights says the system is already proving itself, with the first valuation visit booked online within hours of the system going live.
Once instructed, vendors and landlords get full email alerts on viewings that have been requested – both accompanied viewings and those where the vendor or landlord has indicated online that they will do the viewings.
In addition, the system gives vendors and landlords their own direct access to feedback from viewers.
The system – which allows the agent to be “open” 24/7 – has been designed by Whiteknights itself.
Managing director Nigel Keene said: “We think we are the first traditional estate agent to actually offer a more online service than the online-only estate agents.”
He went on: “Personally, I welcome the idea of new technology into an industry because the internet is all about convenience and that should be a part of estate agency as well.
“The ability to make a purchase, book tickets, or make reservations at the click of a button satisfies the needs of those of us that are impulse purchasers, or are just perhaps too impatient to wait.
“In fact I would go as far as to say I get irritated when a website teases me with a ‘click here for’ option, only to discover it takes me to an email address or submission form that really isn’t very ‘click here for’ at all.
“In estate agency, much has been made of the whole online verses traditional estate agent in recent months.
“The irony of this debate however is that very few online firms can actually trade with buyers or sellers.
“In fact with many I looked at, one is still met by that frustrating ‘click here for’ that merely directs you to a submission form.”
He added: “Our intention with this software is not to replace our existing local presence but to complement it, and with an eye to the future, we want our clients to be able to choose whether they deal with us online, by telephone or in fact as many still do, face to face.
“I do not believe that any estate agent can truly represent clients’ best interests and meet all of their individual needs with just one of these options.”
The new system will have further development, so that it can be used for property management purposes.
It will be made available for other agents to buy shortly.
Keene said: “The system has been written to work with any existing agency software database.
“Our intention is to gain a little market advantage ourselves and then offer the software to other estate agents who wish to establish an online trading footprint to complement their existing one.”
The Whiteknights website is here
Above, information about the new online system, and below, properties on the agent’s website where people can book a viewing online
Comments (39)
they are just buttons.
I cant see why this is really being made an issue of i think its a great idea.
How many times have you wanted to by something either a product or service but thought i don’t want to speak to anybody as i dont want to be sold to. I for one am like that i hate speaking to people as we live in a society conditioned to sell today.
Often i have been on websites and requested something or purchased something as i have not wanted to call and speak to anybody.
I assume check are made before viewings are carried out so from that point no security issues.
It also get people interacting with your website, if they are booking / requesting viewings online then you may also find they book / request a valuation.
Its not going to replace good old fashion estate agency but is a tool to use alongside it.
Again only reading this back after posting, apologies again for poor grammar and spelling!
welum to tu club.
Nigel, the features not active anymore as it caused more stress than booking a viewing, I dont think you can just say ‘I will view that property at 1pm tomorrow’ and expect it to work out? Homeowner may be there, you’re completely booked etc etc, then you need to call back and arrange another time. Going round in circles.
I think you’ve missed the point Trevor, its not a wing and a prayer, applicants CAN book to see a property straight into our diary. We know which properties are key and which ones are with the owners. If its with us then they can choose a time from our diary, if its with the owner, they get an email to say their viewing has been requested and when the owner confirms then they are sent confirmation. As I have said above though we have CHOSEN not to allow direct contact between the buyer and seller so every request comes through our server. Our system also uses the database of our in office software so appointments booked through the offices also remove availability online if our staff are committed elsewhere. We also ensure that they can’t double book or give us short notice. It’s a software platform so we can control all of those things and do so to reflect how we choose to work.
Nigel, what is the point of an applicant being able to book a viewing online, when that applicant may not be suitable for that property and, more importantly your seller?.
There are a lot of examples where an applicant could book an appointment(out of hours), make travel arrangements etc only to find that they are not suitable for the property. For example “cash buyers only” due to subsidence (and your applicant that books an appointment needs a mortgage.), No chains (on instructions from your seller) and your applicant that makes an appointment has own to sell not on market, etc……..and also what happens when an applicant makes themselves an appointment, makes travel arrangements, only to find your vendor can’t make the appointment or get you a key?.
Surely a more manageable, user friendly function would be to request a viewing which could then be followed up by a member of staff. This would avoid disappointment from applicants who could, feasibly, book themselves a number of viewings over a weekend, book a train and hotel, only to be told the following day that the viewings aren’t possible?
Thanks Wilko and we have thought of that. As I may have hinted to above, we still call the buyers whether they have booked online or not, even if its just to offer them other properties to view. The point is however that they have been able to book either with us or the seller (if they have agreed to show people round after hours) and they have received confirmation of that.
We also have built into the system a failsafe time gap to avoid applicants booking appointments that don’t cross over our open times (i.e. not allowing us time to speak to them before the viewing). It also stops someone trying to book at 7.30 for a viewing that night with the owner at 9.30. We could have allowed that but like you we are high street estate agents and we prefer a little more control at this stage.
Rightly or wrongly we felt that as long as viewers/vendors were given the opportunity to book online and it be meaningful i.e. actually into our operational diary, then they wouldn’t have a problem if we called them to clarify, verify or amend details. Its that initial call that I personally believe that consumers would like the option of not doing.
One of our twitter comments this morning summed it up: “Fantastic new service from @Whiteknights in Reading – Can’t believe someone hasn’t done this before.
Thanks for your reply Nigel and I do wish you well with the site. The claims made in the story aren’t really, truthfully 100% correct ? ie;
“The system also allows would-be buyers and tenants to book viewings directly online.
They can also book multiple viewings, which can be added to a viewing cart”
Yes, the function is there but you are already stating that in more cases than not applicants can’t physically book appointments on all the properties they want to view at times suitable to them (due to various restraints/checks on the system) so that may lead to disappointed, frustrated applicants ?
I would also be a little worried that the system could be open to abuse by disgruntled customers or your competitor agents.
Sorry Wilko but no the article is correct buyers CAN book directly online. For all those properties (and they are the majority in our case) they are booking straight in to our office diary. For those where the owners are showing buyers around then we just feel that to allow a buyer unchecked access to a vendor is a security issue so the applicant picks their time still, and the vendor is informed automatically. They then agree the time and that is communicated back to the buyer. All of that happens automatically but as I have said for safety reasons we have blocked the ability to be able to arrange viewings without there being office hours that we can verify the viewer.
The only restrictions are when we have no availability (but they can see that) or if a vendor can’t do the appointment but thats no different to now. I honestly can’t see that leads to any frustration because in almost all cases the buyer gets the time they want.
We have even set this up for open houses so in those cases all viewings are unavailable APART from the open house time slots.
Some interesting comments on here and I appreciate the observations. In terms of IE 11 we spotted that when we turned the site on live so have addressed that but thank you for pointing it out.
With regard to it being a gimmick, it isn’t really. It’s about extending the breadth of our offering. We have 6 branches and arrange hundreds of viewings a week in addition to our valuation appointments, so the whole point of this module is to work alongside our existing software and synchronize with our existing diary and against our database for existing client records. I always used to refer to a For Sale board as a 24-hour salesman, well, so is this. It is also not about being lazy, we employ sales people (both men and women if you look through the offices), so we can and will continue, to call clients and qualify them, but the whole point is that they can initially BOOK our services whenever they want regardless of our office opening hours.
Finally I frequent this publication enough to have guessed that Trevor would have already done this. You may wish to address your website though Trevor as it certainly isn’t obvious on there that you can or have. By the way we will be making this available to other agents so it cannot be construed as a cartel!
Well played Nigel. This type of tech is to be embraced, will look into it myself!
Thanks SP, email me when you’re ready and I am happy to give you more details.
No ability to qualify applicants, vendors or landlords if they make their own bookings, and that isn’t good for an agents efficiency.
EYE, had an idea, not sure if its available yet or not, but how about making the name ‘Trevor Gillham’ for example ‘clickable’ so it goes to a profile page about the person? Similar to a linkedin profile page?
You’ve got a LinkedIn profile page for that very purpose!
Indeed I do, but this is purely for estate agency and I think it would suit perfectly.
Why?
What difference does it make?
The only benefit is to “Cold Callers” who see you comment on a story and then call you up trying to sell you something.
But I like cold callers…..Seriously its a good idea, unless you don’t want to show who you are of course.
I’m Gump, above is Smile Please and PeeBee, now I don’t particularly like quoting the obvious, but it’s quite clear most people on this site don’t want to show who they are
That’s true. I’ll give up with this now.
We’ve offered this service for over 2 years now.
AgentPro is offering the login feature as a website package so it’s hardly custom made.
Interesting…so how does it vet the timewasters?
Sounds to me like a gimmick for a lazy agent.
I don’t wish to sound flippant but this is hardly new technology. I think it is essential to keep updating tech, and well done for that, but to say…….
“it firmly believes it has successfully bridged the gap between a traditional estate agency service and the demands of today’s internet society”………is a bit sensationalist and, in my view, a bit irrelevant and silly.
Website looks a bit naff in Internet Explorer 11 – I haven’t tried it in Chrome yet.
5 boys and no girls – gentlemen you are missing a trick – ladies are much better sales”men” than us. I am a man BTW.
In my experience (24 years as an estate agent and 10 years as web geek) your average customer wanting a high street agent does not want to fill in that valuation info form. They’ll want to fill in a door number, postcode and telephone number for a call back.
A customer wanting an online agent will fill that whole form in.
The question they should ask themselves is “What type of agents do we want to be?”
I can say that I want to be a high street agent with a killer online presence dealing with real customers that appreciate the value that a good estate agent can add.
2012 was when we introduced this. I don’t think anyone else does it, so congratulations.
They will find it does wonders for their business, so hat’s off to them.
In terms of ‘enhancements’, what we found really useful is a text reminder shortly prior to the appointment, ‘from’ the attending attend. It boosts turn up rates, or you get a response to confirm a ‘no-show’ to save a wasted journey.
But the online bookings is the easy bit. You need to build full online access for landlords and online tenancy applications, but they are on the right path.
Good luck to them. Nice website too.
This is great and shows that the high street incumbents are starting to get it. So all WhiteKnights need to do now is to actually display their fee (reducing it to a substantially fairer one than their competitors) and increase their 61% customer service rating (AllAgents) to 90% plus, and they may be on to something.
Bet they turn a profit and do not rely on taking money off others to run their business………………
I love the way you keep referencing AllAgents. Lets ask 1000 people if they’ve even heard of it.. probably 90% plus haven’t.
sensed a hint of “oh bo77ocks – death of the Online Agent on the way” there Quirky boy!
Arr yes, AllAgents, the website that gives international tenants with poor English the opportunity to moan to their hearts content about things they don’t like or don’t understand. I’ve seen complaints on there about agents where the landlord hasn’t returned their deposit at the end of the tenancy, hardly the agents fault, or regarding no refunding of a non-refundable holding deposit. Ignorant in the extreme.
Never quite understand why you always comment that the fee needs to be fairer.
Its an open market & always has been, therefore (presumably) all agents try to charge the best (highest) fee that they can.
Russell, if an agent sells on service that justifies higher fees. Why do agents need to keep dropping?? ‘People gets, what they pay for’ it doesn’t have to limit sellers to sole agency?
More exposure may = greater offers = outweighs lower fees.
There is a word for this idiot and it rhymes with bosser. I think we could all reduce our fees to get more business but most of us need to make a profit and provide a FULL service, not a £2,000,000 loss.
Lower cost of servicing – check
Lower cost of acquisition – check
Scalability – no check
How much does it have to scale for this agent? Seems like checks 1 and 2 and great wins. How do you define scale?
This is not new, http://www.andrewsonline.co.uk has had this feature for over 4 years. The reality is that applicants need qualifying and diaries need managing.
I thought I would look at the link you kindly provided James and it does exactly what I said in my release it shouldn’t do and that is just takes you to a form to submit. That ISNT online ours is.
I agree applicants do need qualifying and diaries managing, but our software does all of that. I am an estate agent and have been for 30 years so everything we need can be incorporated, has been incorporated and means that online compliments what we do and have done for years.