How do you want to be served, Robots or Humans

I’ve just had a call from a recommendation. He currently lives in E11 and knows what he wants to spend but not where he wants to live. These days central London, even prime central London, can embrace areas as diverse as Hampstead, Chelsea, Nottinghill Gate, Earls Court, Kensington, Wandsworth, Islington, Mayfair to name but a few….you get the idea. For anybody thinking of moving the main thing they need is to talk to someone, and preferably someone who knows what they’re talking about. His first question was about how long my team had been together and did they know the area.

It’s as well to remember this is the way property SHOULD be sold, knowingly and by experts. Many have written about how awful estate agents are and very few have written about how to improve them. Many have equally tried to jump on negative press and launch cheap alternatives but almost all have missed the point that human beings need to interact with other human beings when transacting important business, particularly of an emotional nature.

Getting this call was a breath of fresh air, and took me back 20 years when people would call the office and talk to you. They’d really talk and it was more often than not to find out if you had a clue what you were talking about. If they didn’t get the answers they wanted they’d go on until they found an agent who did. When they arrived with someone they liked they simply set a rough budget and it would be up to the agent to start to interpret what they needed, NOT what they wanted. In the end the chances are they’d buy something completely different having been offered a range of alternatives. Had they not interacted with a human being they’d still be pressing buttons or clicking a mouse, so the choice is yours, proper meaningful service, or cheap as chips self service.