One-third of Hamptons International customers using an out-of-hours service are contacting the agency on a Sunday.
A year ago, the Hamptons brand launched a 24/7 service.
It is centralised but not outsourced and is manned by Hamptons’ own trained staff, who are available out of hours to talk to buyers, sellers, landlord and renters.
People can book appointments and talk through any property-related issue at any time and day of the week.
While Sunday is the busiest day, there was an uptick in the number of people contacting Hamptons in the evenings during May, June and July – when the days are longer.
Yesterday, Hamptons said that the success of its initiative reinforces the message that estate agency is no longer 9-5.
Mary Beeton, head of London sales at Hamptons, said: “We identified the need to transform this area of our business some time ago, and the 24/7 service has been very well received since its launch.
“We know that house hunting isn’t a 9-5 job, and we also know that calling a supposed out of hours ‘service’ and finding it to be simply someone taking messages is frustrating when you want answers or action.
“So when creating the 24/7 hotline we didn’t employ just anyone – our ‘night owls’ are Hamptons employees, trained in exactly the same way as colleagues in our branches, meaning that there is no compromise on our customer service.”
Comments (18)
All very well but have you ever tried to get a tenant to agree to an out of hours viewing? Doesn’t matter how many calls or visitors you get out of hours if you cannot fulfil the request.
Isn’t this all just a self-fulfilling prophesy?
If you are open 24:7 – then someone, at some time, will “justify” your decision by ringing at stupid’o’clock.
Hey presto! You have then made a rod for your own back.
I struggle to believe that Hamptons or any other company have equally trained and able staff available at three in the morning to those sitting in their branches facing the public on a daily basis – therefore there will be a compromise on customer service.
Er, no it doesn’t.
We are open Sundays
Wins us loads of instructions
I know I am missing something …we are in the year 2019 right? not 1911 …
22% of viewing requests coming from our high street clients are for Sundays, so this is clearly a good idea. As we all know when you go to see a property with some of the best known names at weekends you’ll get a local viewing assistant meeting you. It would seem the missing link for many, and the way to gain real extra income, is to be seen to service these weekend requests all the way – ie to the actual viewing. Work/life balance is something for negs to have, for punters out there they only move occasionally so doing things out of hours is vital. Our figures clearly show this and feedback also shows there’s no diminution in offers being made by using an outsourced service like Viewber.
Making a rod for your own back? We used to be open on a Sunday, it was quiet for 95% of the time, not cost efficient or generated any new worthwhile business so we stopped it. Other agents in town continued and slowly they all stopped it. Never ceases to amuse me when I drive through a town the number of customer empty open agencies chasing a red herring. Customers will follow you when you are open normal hours, its that fear of missing out on business that continues to generate the 24/7 malarkey. Your customers don’t work 24/7 and would be the first to complain. The choice to be 24/7 isn’t customer driven. There is a big difference to being open and opportunity to be used.
Nothing new. Our key staff have work mobiles so that anyone can contact us out-of-hours. It’s all part of our award-winning service!!
I can completely see why this would work as everybody wants everything instantly these days, but with recruitment becoming more and more of an issue in this sector (and this is being exacerbated by employees seeking a better ‘work life balance’!) I’m intrigued to know what the demographics of these ‘night owls’ are.
They are most likely Estate Agents, Anthony – the ones who are working from 8am to 8pm and who work a 5 day / 6 day work rota.
There are software products like Area & leadpro that can manage you out of hours customer interaction far more efficiently than manning a central call centre. Also when you look at the volume and more importantly the type of calls you receive outside the business hours of say 9am – 7 pm, then its widely accepted most clients wish to transact electronically than over the phone outside of normal perceived business hours.
Well when a customer is answered by a remote chat operater they invariably are unable to answer any questions about the property ,vendor individual dealing with the sale etc
Any question however relevant is usually answered with can we offer you a free valuation ? When this same service is continued during normal business hours and you can never speak to anyone who knows anything about the individual property its even more frustrating
Err… Software can’t charm a client into a valuation as you have taken the time to respond to a call out of hours. We’ve had a 24/7 line for 11 years and customers love it, we’ve recently launched a “fine” style package and call it a concierge – great instruction winner and we’ve picked up business by answering in the evening or weekends when other agents have the voicemail on!
Well they certainly try Here is the opening gambit on the chatline Same old being trotted out now or after hours
Hi, welcome to ***********. Are you looking for a free accurate valuation of your property? Shall we chat?
NO I AM NOT JUST WANT TO KNOW IF YOU SELL HOUSES AS YOU HAVEN’tT SOLD MINE
When I had my online agency we were open Sundays 10-4, the phone started ringing at 9.50! Used to get about 10 calls in the first hour then maybe another 3 all day.
Have they followed the contacts right through and determined how much actual business is a result of these ‘out of hours’ calls?
And how that measures up to the costs? Are the staff paid by the hour or by the call? Or time off in lieu
5 years ago, when the management at CW knew what they were doing, they’d have had this MI traced all the way through from phone call to exchange of contracts. Nowadays however, I suspect the management have this MI available to them, but are too busy with their 4 conference calls per day, 3 grievance meetings per week, endless spreadsheet figure reporting and dealing with general poo storms to have time to analyse said data.
Good PR though. Apart from the fact that like you, any agent with some sense would probably question the headline and look for substance to the claim. How the mighty have fallen!