New year, new challenge… house hunting. Without Kirsty and Phil to help my partner and I are relying perseverance, the Rightmove app and a helpful estate agent or two to help us on our way. Just a couple of weeks now into ‘the search’ and I’m getting increasingly frustrated at the poor quality of the estate agents marketing and CRM strategies *shakes head*.
Lets focus on the digital, as I have a tendency to do…
1) I have started to receive e-newsletters from a number of agents when I’ve not actively opted-in into this form of communication from them. Come on ladies and gents of the property world, has no one ever spoken to you about the data protection act?
2) I wouldn’t mind getting your e-mail marketing if it was relevant to me. The information is frequently unrelated to our preferences / needs, though I do wish we had that much to spend on a house! Segment your database then communicate with me when you have sometime useful to tell me, after all your just wasting my time and yours.
3) Estate agents of Manchester start putting some social and some soul into your social media – that is if you’ve even been brave enough to take a step in this direction. Of five estate agents in Greater Manchester (who will remain nameless), that I have been in contact with during ‘the search’ of these only one is on YouTube, two on Facebook, three on Twitter and none of them are blogging. Looking more closely this social media activity is patchy, heavily sales focused and far from engaging. Do I want to have a ‘relationship’ with an estate agent via a social network, I guess not – and maybe that’s just me. However these are channels I do find useful for sourcing and receiving information but I don’t want to be sold to all the time. I want to feel, if the inclination struck me, that I could have a ‘conversation’ with these agencies via these networks and they’d be approachable and responsive.
So wish me luck with the search and let me know if I am I alone in these views? Have you found an agent that is getting it right? I’d love to hear about them.
Image c/o Lee J Haywood licensed under Creative Commons.
socialBedia 
2 Responses to a-state agents
Well B, after a year of dealing with the constant ineptitude of estate agents (am on my second agent in trying to sell my house), I pity what you have to come. I’ve had estate agents pass on my personal contact details to vendors without my permission, estate agents sending me completely irrelevant information on a regular basis or just wiping me off their list completely without asking, or not letting me view a property until I’d confirmed in writing that I had a mortgage, estate agent turning up at my house late and therefore missing a viewing that contributed to losing the sale – oh I could go on.
Am looking forward to watching Mary Queen of Shops this week when she tackles estate agents…
anyway rant over and good luck!!
LikeLike
Grim, grim, grim. You just rant away! Hope you have better luck with your ‘new’ agent. Thank you putting me onto this week’s Mary Queen of Shops should be an interesting watch.
LikeLike