Despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, traditional high street agents have proved themselves to be “utterly indispensable”, a new survey suggests.
The vast majority of home movers are opting to use the services provided by traditional high street agents during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, rather than their online rivals, the study found.
Property platform WiggyWam analysed the market last month and found that 88% of people who have recently moved home hired a traditional high street estate agent to lead the process.
Meanwhile, 8% of respondents who took part in the survey said they completed their last home move without the help of any agent whatsoever, while just 3% used an online or hybrid agent.
The survey of 1,107 UK home sellers also revealed that 72% felt that their agent performed either very well (35%) or to a satisfactory level (37%).
Just 15% of respondents said they were disappointed by the service their agent provided.
When asked what they would do to improve the experience of using an estate agent, 21% unsurprisingly said they would reduce the fees that agents charge.
Some 14% said they would improve the overall standard of service, 11% want better communication, and 10% wish it had taken less time to find a buyer.
Silas J. Lees, WiggyWam CEO, said: “At a time when one would expect online agency to be thriving, traditional agency is proving itself, once again, utterly indispensable. These findings come at the end of the most challenging year agents have faced in decades and yet people still overwhelmingly choose a highstreet agent above all else. There is no more glaring vote of confidence in traditional agency than this.
“Whatsmore, with customers so delighted with the work of agents, it highlights again the problems being caused by archaic and sluggish conveyancing processes causing a bottleneck as we fast approach the stamp duty deadline. Agents deserve better. The public deserves better.”
Well, I surmise that the public must be easily pleased!
I take this view because the High Street agents I have the ‘pleasure’ of phoning and dealing with are generally very poor at answering the phone (1 in 5 calls go unanswered and have no voicemail facility either); the call answerer generally gives the impression they don’t want to be there and don’t care; and are usually unhelpful or just don’t know how to help with my enquiry.
It is shocking. Truly shocking. I’m embarrassed for the industry to be frank.
Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes the call is answered by a cheerful, helpful, professional, energetic sounding individual who is knowledgeable and efficient in their handling of my call. Sadly, this breath of fresh air only happens approximately 5% to 10% of the time!
Come on guys, let’s pull our socks up! Identify if training of staff is needed and call in either Sarah Edmundson, Stephen Brown or Julian O’Dell!
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How does your firm perform? Let’s have a name so we can get some feedback.
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Seems like a paid survey!
Online market has gone up by almost 15% during the pandemic. 🙂
More than 250+ online agents in the UK at this moment.
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‘Online market has gone up by almost 15% during the pandemic’ – source please?
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RM & Z data identifies no more than 6% of market share belongs to on-line only.
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BIG SMILE
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If only 35% thought their agent performed very well how does that = indispensable?! To me that means 2/3 thought their agent was very much dispensable.
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