Traditional agents are doing better than online agents – online.
An independent report by digital customer service and sales firm The Chat Shop looked at five online agents and five traditional agents.
It found that Knight Frank leads the way in social media, with the highest number of followers and interaction on both Twitter and Facebook.
Foxtons’ website has the most online traffic with 970,000 visitors per month – 300% more than all of the online agents combined.
Your Move was second with 440,000 visitors per month and online agent House Network had the least number of visitors at 30,000.
The report – which was not commissioned by any third party – looked at Foxtons, haart, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, Knight Frank and Your Move.
The five online agents it looked at were eMoov, House Network, House Simple, Purplebricks and Tepilo.
The research was done between last September and December.
It did, however, find that online agents do better in terms of making information and services accessible to customers.
House Network came top in accessibility, with all contact channels and essential information available either on its home page or just one click away.
By contrast, the Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (KFH), Knight Frank and Your Move sites still require up to two clicks to find a company phone number, branch listing, or to book a valuation.
Your Move came bottom, with all but one channel being two clicks away.
Visits per month (source: Similarweb):
Foxtons 970,000
Your Move 440,000
KFH 250,000
Haart 230,000
Knight Frank 150,000
Purplebricks 90,000
House Simple 50,000
Emoov 35,000
Tepilo 35,000
House Network 30,000
The research also looked at Facebook “likes”. The highest, with 5,427, was Knight Frank, followed by KFH with 3,542 and eMoov with 3,410. Two of the five online agents, House Simple and Purplebricks, scored fewer than 1,000 likes per page.
Bottom was Foxtons with no Facebook activity.
When it comes to Twitter, the online agents were as a group more prolific at tweeting than the traditional agents: however, this could partly be explained by Foxtons having no official Twitter presence.
Traditional agents have more followers than their online counterparts, but online agents are much more enthusiastic followers of other Twitter users.
Knight Frank has the most popular Twitter presence, followed by eMoov, Your Move, House Network, haart and House Simple. KFH, Purplebricks and Tepilo scored least in the popularity stakes.
In terms of volume of tweets, Tepilo has the most active Twitter account, followed by eMoov, haart and Knight Frank.
The research also looked at office hours per week and, not surprisingly, found that Purplebricks – with its use of a 24/7 call centre – offers by far the most hours. However, next come traditional agents haart and Foxtons with 98 and 84 hours respectively. Knight Frank offers the least opening hours at 49.
The research’s accessibility scoring is also interesting, looking at how easy it was to book a valuation by phone, live chat, email and/or contact form, and branch information.
Of the traditional agents, only Foxtons has a live chat facility, pushing it into second place on the ‘accessibility’ index. Top is House Network, with a near perfect score.
Surprisingly, two online agents which were otherwise very accessible had no live chat function – eMoov and House Simple.
Jonny Everett, director of customer development at the Chat Shop, said: “We were interested to find that traditional agents had a powerful digital presence, with a number embracing social media adeptly.
“Online agents performed better in terms of their accessibility and variance in channels.
“What’s clear is that online agents have a way to go in terms of brand awareness, but traditional agents must assess their current mix and accessibility of channels to remain competitive in the long run.”
The report makes for interesting reading, although it does place what some agents may see as unquestioning reliance on allAgents when it comes to looking at customer satisfaction ratings.
You can sign up to obtain the report here
Really looking to the responses on this article especially from the 'digital experts' that post on here so often.
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Nice try you must be joking. I just cannot understand how online agents will ever manage to recover. Have you seen the figures. Emooooooove seem to only have 3 men and a dog visiting their site, particularly when you remember that they are supposed to have national coverage. I would be disappointed if that few people visited my single office.
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Sorry Newsboy am I reading it wrong? serious question! 35,000 visits per month is not low is it? I was most surprised with PB @ 90,000 It goes to show there is an appetite for this type of offering they obviously not managed to get the formula right though look at number of listings.
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Isn't their 'office' technically Rightmove etc. though?
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The owner of emoov spends more time on blogs moaning than he does looking after his clients
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I think you will find he is not the owner….in fact not sure what his job there is nowdays?
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With a (Ctrl U) slight (Ctrl U0 warming of respect towards Simon Shinerock yesterday I reckon I can just about get away with posting that many traditional agents might spot (bottom RH corner Choices website) that he has armed himself with the tools to compete head to head with the 24/7 USP claimed by the Online only agents. Digging about a bit revealed which Live Chat supplier he has chosen and although not everyone appreciates his posting style Mr Shinerock is making some good choices (Pun intended)
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…..and in other news another budget agent gets all squeaky about the industry doing things online http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/1839-easyproperty-s-public-blast-at-onthemarket – Jonnie
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Really, All online agents are terrible ? What I read from this (and im a traditional agent) is that in its first year of launch to the South west region only I believe Purple bricks has garnered 60% of the website traffic of Knight Frank , a multinational agency thats been established for 30 odd years . I for one am pretty worried. I can only imagine that those figures will increase when large swathes f the country remove themselves from one or other of the portals. Its like Christmas for these guys and what they offer ….. Worrying times
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Fur coat no knickers …… How many "Listings" do they have – I too am worried long term but PB are not a threat, the amount they have spent on advertising and recruitment. Yes they drive people to the website but not many are signing up. Its not a sustainable business model they have. Too many outgoings not enough incoming. One day somebody will get it right but none of the current players. My money is on when Countrywide, LSL or Sequence downsize on the high street and open up their "Internet option" that when we need to worry
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Perhaps I am living in La La land, but i haven't identified a credible threat to the traditional agency model or the fee structure that convinces me to put any time or effort into developing for an emerging sector. Given that the very latest tech and portal developments are running about 4-6 years behind the stuff I sit and ponder I haven't spotted much on the horizon that should have the industry reaching for the Whiskey bottle. Stuff is going to change but simple mathematics and good business sense says that supporting the traditional model is the most intelligent strategy. Mr Mirza has developed some great tech and good ideas but the lack of understanding of the industry and a failure to recognise the simple, robust defences of traditional agency will work against him and anyone else who tries to be too clever, too soon.
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Hi,
I really appreciate you all sharing your varied opinions that our report has produced!
It's definitely true that traditional agents are still dominant when it comes to their sites traffic, but I think Danny makes an interesting point; with what I understand to be significantly less resource at their disposal and the obvious drawback of no branches to raise awareness offline, online agents have still made a sizeable dent in terms of traffic.
Whilst traditional agents are traffic dominant, many fell below our accessibility benchmark. There is nothing stopping traditional agents taking advantage of more digital tools like live chat or social, as some in the report have, as have our own property clients.
Even if the online model isn't seen as a serious threat (is it?), is there not a case to suggest that even with no new business models entering the market, traditional agents must keep pace with digital and, wherever possible, utilise new tools and channels to gain advantage?
I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on any of the above, or other findings in the report.
Best,
Jonny
The Chat Shop
@JonnyChats
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Jonny thanks for your input, always good to hear from new people. I think the issue you have in understanding estate agency is it is very different from any other business or service. I am not having a pop just trying to steer you in the right direction as if something innovative crops up we would all listen. You say that the onliners have significantly less resources. I would challenge you to see how many millions PB have put into PPC, SEO, TV advertising and online ads. It some ways not surprising they have so many website hits, But heres the rub, They do not get enough sign ups no matter what PB say publicly they expected a larger market share at this stage (same as easyproperty). Social media is a must for local agents, I personally do not belive it works on a national scale as the personal touch is lost as for live chat, I would be surprised if this yields any great response. It looks cool and its great to say you have it but I can guarantee you one thing the biggest question asked on instant chat to an estate agent is "Whats your fee?" – and no agent will give that out online or over the phone.
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Personally I find live chat incredibly frustrating in many instances as you seem to be left hanging for far too long. I still believe that the vast majority of people prefer to talk to an agent or correspond by email, which can be almost as instantaneous as live chat. With poor live chat services I find that I don't then want to use that company again. It's good to talk!!
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Understand that everyone has a preferred method of communication. Agree totally that live chat must be well through through and well run or else it'll be a bigger drawback than addition. Interestingly it has the highest level of customer satisfaction over phone and email. That said, whether chat, email, phone or social run on extended hours, both offer traditional agents the potential to extend their ability to talk with a real person once the branches shut. Opening hours was an area where the online agents excelled.
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