This is a phrase that we often bat around in the My Home Move family. We know that everyone plays a vital role in delivering the service that we provide to clients and our industry partners. From the teams in our New Business Unit, who drive instructions, to our Post-Completion teams, we know that together we make up the well-oiled machine that helps thousands of people to move home every year.
That said, as much as we know how we all contribute to the moving process, we’re just one part of a larger group of businesses that, together, make up the entire client journey.
Arguably, it is this bigger collection of businesses and individuals in which the difference between a great experience, and a bad one, lies for most of our mutual clients. Why then, is there not more of an appetite for industry collaboration?
This has been the focus of some of the discussions that I’ve been having with others in the property industry.
Everyone who has acted on behalf of a client will know the struggle. You know you’re doing all that you can and have done everything that you need to do to get a client moving, yet the client still isn’t moving! There can be any number of issues – perhaps their mortgage offer is still waiting to come through, perhaps there’s a snag with the other-side that their conveyancer is trying to resolve, or maybe it’s a delay further down the chain. You’re just not quite sure where the hold up is or how you can help to alleviate your clients anguish.
And here lies the problem that a lack of genuine industry collaboration can cause. For many clients, their estate agent is their first port-of-call for information and updates. Because there is a general lack of awareness of the legal process, an issue that would be best referred to their conveyancer can often land on the lap of the estate agent. Imagine the impact that having to say “I don’t know what’s going on” has on the clients’ experience, trust and stress levels. It’s already one of the most stressful processes we go through in our lives without losing faith in the very people that are supposed to make it easier.
As an industry, we must collaborate better and find new ways of keeping everybody in the transaction appropriately informed on important issues and the progress of our mutual clients’ move. Many have already taken steps to increase the flow of information between parties – including us with our Introducer eWay portal – but there are still many that simply won’t engage.
Resisting this movement is not only detrimental to keeping the industry moving as one, united party, it also has a profound effect on the client experience – after all, if one cog sticks or jars, the whole thing is deemed broken.
It’s certainly food for thought.