What are the critical success factors in estate agency and what makes Enfields different?

In estate agency, there are a number of critical success factors in separating the market leaders from the also-rans.

First and foremost, estate agency is a service business. Customers who instruct agents to sell their properties are looking to achieve the best price for their property in as pain-free a way as possible. Therefore agents need to be very proactive in selling property and need to manage the vendor's expectations with ongoing communication.

To achieve this requires that sophisticated systems and procedures are developed and implemented within the business. This includes not only operational procedures for listing and marketing properties, but also cutting edge IT systems to ensure that staff time is optimized at all times.

To consistently deliver high service-levels, staff members must be trained and developed continuously. So successful estate agents must not only have mature recruitment processes in place to attract talented individuals - but also clear management procedures to ensure that individuals are performing as expected, and that the team delivers exceptional results.

Marketing communications provide the tools for ensuring that estate agents build awareness in their local market. Therefore, it is critical that integrated marketing campaigns are implemented to build the company's profile. Successful estate agents not only spend their advertising budgets wisely across online and offline media, they also develop ongoing public relations programs to ensure maximum exposure in the local (and sometimes national) marketplace.

Proactive agents also engage in continuous direct marketing with targeted offers and promotions to ensure they match their property stock to their list of buyer needs. Finally, good salesmanship is often the key to winning the instruction, so top agents always ensure that the prospective customer (vendor) fully understands the benefits of the service.

Enfields has always strived to achieve best practice since we opened our first branch in January 2000. And we are always pushing the boundaries of what is possible. This has directly led to us becoming the clear market leaders in Southampton - and customers are willing to pay a premium for superior service. We typically list properties at a 2% fee (which is way above the market average of 1% to 1.5%).

It is for these reasons that we are now a highly profitable company, and our franchisees can benefit directly by operating in this way from day one (rather than attempting it on their own) which means that they will build their market position as quickly as possible, and potentially be in profit in the shortest possible timescale.

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If you there is anything else you need to know please call us on 023 8082 8084 or email us at headoffice@enfields.co.uk