Purplebricks customers are encouraged to self-serve as part of a cost-effective operation, the chief financial officer has said.
James Davies, in an interview with Financial Director, says: “The aim is to encourage customers to self-serve as much as possible and to use the website for basic tasks such as booking viewings – this way phone calls can be spent helping customers with more complex inquiries.
“We get over a million calls a year into our contact centre, and around a quarter is to book viewings.
“With the exception of a lettings business, the whole company is run from Solihull and we don’t have any high street presence.
“We have a very cost-efficient operation on a small business park near Solihull, and that’s where all the individuals are based.
“The effectiveness of the work environment has improved a lot over the last nine months or so as we move further towards a modern contact centre workspace and an overall operation with a deep-rooted digital mindset.”
Davies has been with Purplebricks some three years, after experience at Close Brothers, Deutsche Bank, UBM and William Hill – the last when online gambling was taking off.
He joined Purplebricks while seeking “a forward-looking company that was in a disruptive phase”.
During his time at Purplebricks he has certainly seen disruption, including the departures of founders Michael and Kenny Bruce, and the appointment of Vic Darvey as CEO last year, and the pulling out of the Australian and US markets.
He has also seen the growth of Purplebricks in the UK: “We are the number one player in the UK market, and have been for some time.”
- Yesterday, Purplebricks shares closed at 93p, down just over 7% during the day.
https://www.financialdirector.co.uk/2020/02/24/purplebricks-cfo-on-the-power-of-disruption/
Comments (16)
The irony that most of Purplebricks senior management are self serving.
The biggest reason that customers must self service is because usually the call centre has no capacity to answer the telephone.
I recall a video floating around recently stating the current wait was several hours.
Of course the opinion of the famous Mr Warren is that if they have zero wait time then the business is paying staff to do nothing waiting for the phone to ring. Obviously at any normal estate agent this would be spent being proactive and phoning out. Oh I see the dilemma there at Purplebricks.
No invoices being paid today unless they sign the new contract that’s heavily weighed against the LPE.
Another new low.
Wow! Really??
Yes, they’re trying to strong arm everyone into signing.
Well its for business earned prior to the changes….so they can’t, surely….but they probably will
They CANNOT legally withhold money from you. This can’t be right?
You will find this muppet is the architect of all PBs issues. Paid himself £650,000 last year and hundreds of thousands of shares for this disaster.
No, Michael and Kenny created the foundation and playbook. They are the “Architects”.
“Yesterday, Purplebricks shares closed at 93p, down just over 7% during the day.”
And down a further 5% in the first hour of trading today, it seems – currently sub-88p.
so more more passive and less agency?
Nothing wrong with that in my opinion and being proud of what has been achieved in the FSBO niche would in my opinion be beneficial and do away with a lot of the antagonism between firms that list properties on the portals and firms that provide a full duty of care and skill estate agency services
“…after experience at Close Brothers, Deutsche Bank, UBM and William Hill – the last when online gambling was taking off.“
Well suited for Bricks then – every listing a toss of a coin.
I’ll leave that parked right here…
I’m digging that share price James.
My shares (given to me for doing a good job) were taken off me when I left.
To be honest the option price was so high, they had zero value. It was just another con by upper management to keep you working seven days a week.
I spoke to an ex colleague yesterday, in tears. She has been with PB for over 4 years and has her business snatched away. She has a young family and this was her way of building a better life.
All taken away by James and Vic – It’s terrible.
Hi ExTOgirl,
Everything they’re doing is what they did in OZ. Some people still believe in the “con”, but the writing is on the wall and by Christmas, I think PB will go the way of eMoove.
He’s the king of self serve.
Look at his salary – he brings nothing to the table and has made 100’s of LPEs (and TOs) unhappy.
The current share price backs all of the above up.
Lets also mention the whopping great salary and bonus he paid himself the past 2 years. He enjoyed a huge bonus for the closing down of US and Australia.
The kind who pays himself what he likes but has very tight purse strings to help people who have grafted on the ground.
“The aim is to encourage customers to self-serve as much as possible and to use the website for basic tasks such as booking viewings – this way phone calls can be spent helping customers with more complex inquiries.”
So common courtesy for LPEs to directly contact customers for cancellation of appointments or delays thrown out of the window relying on them to check website which is often out of action as this recent customer experience reveals
Waste of time.
“I don’t know how people can successfully sell or purchase a house through these.
We requested a viewing for a house using their online service. An account with a password needs to create even at this stage.Then you have to wait for the seller to confirm or approve the appointment. They didn’t approve and suggested a different time. The new time didn’t work and so we went back and forth…Other estate agent find out sellers availability or show you the house themselves. This is definitly the most difficult to book even just a viewing.
A time and date is finally agreed… we click to confirm the appointment. Then an email appears reminding us to confirm the appointment. We try to confirm it again, but an error message appears because we already confirmed it and it shows confirmed know our account.Then another (now urgent) email arrives asking us to confirm again. Same procedure…So we finally get to the confirmed appointment and no one answers.
Total waste of time, but we blame the email system that probably thought we hadn’t confirmed, when in fact we had.Purple Bricks now ask us to provide feedback and asks us why we didn’t attend the appointment after wasting our time.Tried the call centre and they have been useless, blaming the seller.I am so glad we didn’t list our house with purple bricks “