Ahhh, That’s Why

I have just had to fire our estate agent of 5 months. The really sad thing is that they just don’t get it…at all. The 90’s are gone.

There was a time when an agent – didn’t matter who – was instructed. Shortly thereafter a buyer that was able to proceed walked in and would offer the asking price. They would then be followed by another offering yet more money etc etc. To be an estate agent was fairly easy money for relatively little work.

Estate Agents

For Sale

Those days have gone. The UK housing  market is at best uncertain. For any kind of salesperson that means they actually have to work at it. It transpires agent(s) we instructed  are still of the housing boom mindset. Wrong.

The feedback from viewings needed to be chased down every time, my name was constantly spelt incorrectly and then I was called Daniel during the ill-fated, late & bleating “why me” phone call after the firing had happened. Newsflash – we are paying for your services. You aren’t doing me a huge favour by allowing me to have my house on with you. Get over yourselves.

The attitude is so typical of old style British “customer service” it makes my blood boil. I’ll put away my soapbox now.

Estate Agents always look a bit puzzled when they are grouped with crawling things that live in the damp and dark spaces under rocks.

On a positive note have rec’d a recommendation from a friend of an estate agent that actually appreciates the concept of working for their client. Watch this space.

The Emperors New Clothes

When you employ an expert – because you aren’t an expert in an area – like an agency, then you invest your belief as well as your money. After all, to pay for a service and then not have faith in your ability to choose is unlikely. This makes it very hard to see if you are being given good service. Who here is a fan of sticking their hand up and coughing to making a poor choice? Not me and I’d call you a liar if you said otherwise.

I am seeing a friend getting messed around in this way at the moment and am trying to balance the “cruel to be kind” bit w. just butting out. They are starting a business, have invested huge amounts of time, energy & I daresay money and they are getting v. poor service and advice on their website. 9 months after conception they go live today and the site isn’t functioning in Firefox and Chrome. After IE the most popular browsers out there. I thought this was Testing 101 to make sure the 3 main browsers were supported. When over 50% of browser users will have problems it just isn’t good enough.It looks like a tweaked WordPress template – nothing wrong with that – and yet it is still being messed up.

English: Browser usage share on Wikimedia Foun...

Browser market share

I’d big them up on this blog as I think it is a great business idea and really addresses an untapped market niche. However, I don’t want to have anything to do with driving traffic to a flawed site as it’ll hurt and not help at this stage.

I point out some errors on p.1 of the site (multiple) and now feel like I am the little boy saying that the emperor is naked. What do you suggest?

I want to suggest they fire the developers – have 2 days of pain sorting this mess out now and go with a good agency. side-a for example. Simon Ashley would do them proud with quality work and advice.

Steam in and share my experience or butt out?