It’s time to switch from transaction-led thinking to relationship-led behaviours in order to bring new stock to the market, says head of estate agency sector at a leading outsourced communications provider.

With an average estate agency branch having just 20 properties for sale at the end of 2021, the industry widely recognises lack of supply as its biggest challenge.

Joanne Tattum, from Moneypenny – which manages outbound and inbound calls for hundreds of estate agents across the UK – believes part of the answer requires agents to re-awaken skills they’ve mothballed during the boom of the last two years.

She said: “The market has been so frenetically busy that estate agents have struggled to keep up with demand, but much of that work has come to them. Now there’s such an imbalance between demand and supply, agents have to really reinvest in past client relationships. That means picking up the phone and working the vast swathes of past client data they have at their fingertips.

“People’s circumstances have changed over the last two years – many want larger homes, some relationships have broken down and people’s finances have altered – all of which can be the catalyst for a sale. But agents can only capitalise on these life events if they make themselves known and ‘check in’ with previous clients to see how they are. We know this can be a time-intensive and repetitive job – but this is the only way to uncover the nuggets of gold that will deliver new instructions, sales and commission.”

Although a closer-to-normal market is predicted in 2022, with price increases slowing and supply and demand coming more in line, it’s still a case of ‘the early bird catches the worm’ says Jo.

She added: “Agents that get on the front foot and dust-off their proactive sales skills will get ahead and potentially find instructions before anyone else. And, even if some of these calls don’t turn in to immediate instructions, these relationships will pay off later down the line. Agents often struggle with finding a point of difference that goes beyond fees, but proactive calling is a way to address this. People don’t forget businesses that keep in touch and show an interest in their lives.”

Moneypenny added an outbound calling service to its capabilities last year in order to help time-poor and over-stretched agents get ahead. Using their experienced employees to qualify leads, provide detailed quotes, convert enquiries, assign the matter to an agent and input data into CRM, Moneypenny can respond to leads from any source, calling them promptly from the agent’s office telephone number and guaranteeing a professional experience.

Moneypenny handles 2 million property calls and live chats each year for 16,000 property professionals, including 2,500 estate agents and 50 house builders, thanks to a dedicated team of 80 property PAs.

Established in 2000, Moneypenny is the world's market leader for telephone answering, live chat, outsourced switchboard and customer contact solutions. In total, more than 13,000 businesses across the UK benefit from Moneypenny’s mix of extraordinary people and ground-breaking technology.

For more information about Moneypenny’s work with the property sector click here

Visit the Moneypenny page on Kerfuffle to see their wonderful reviews