Case Study: Leaders

In the competitive property letting and management sector,
companies need to move quickly to get new properties in front
of clients as soon as they are available.

With sixteen branches across Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and the West Midlands, Leaders one of the UK’s largest and most successful independent chain of residential property letting and management agents wanted to explore ways of improving profitability and management efficiency, to bolster the strong customer relationships already formed by the branches, and to forge new ones using on-line technology.

Leaders, had invested in a basic web site, but feedback from Leaders’ landlords, staff and prospective tenants indicated that there was potential for something more sophisticated. The site needed to be branch driven to enhance each region’s selling power and contribute to a ‘clicks and mortar’ high-street and on-line presence. TelaWorks, an Internet design and marketing agency and Amplify, an e-business solutions and services provider, formed a “Best of Breed Partnership” in order to offer Leaders a seamless and made-to-measure solution that would significantly enhance the company’s profitability and competitiveness.

Amplify put systems in place, based on Microsoft Sharepoint and SQL Server technology, that provide functions such as “request a viewing”, to optimise response from the branches without creating extra work or duplication where a visitor’s selection may be shared between branches. Also the “let me know” subscription service and “email to a friend” that allow applicants to inform prospective flat mates about available properties. The company also helped create the “intuitive” search engine that not only matches a given search criteria, but also suggests realistic alternatives should those search details not be found. This proved useful in allowing visitors to get a feel for property prices, as well as avoiding the frustration of a “zero results” search. Leaders also found that prospective tenants were happy to scale up to a higher price band, given the option, which also speeded up the conversion process.

Since launching the updated web site nine months ago, activity has increased by 200% and a growing number of our offices are claiming that at least 25% of tenant enquires are generated by the web site. It has also proved to be an effective tool in gaining landlords instructions and on line tenant registrations have increased by 100% over the last two months.
Jason Cliffe, Sales and Marketing Director