Sanderson Weatherall – a stepping stone to recruitment
Background
Sanderson Weatherall are a national firm of estate agents with offices around the UK. They offer sales and lettings services to buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants. Diana Warr heads up the Leeds office.
Challenges
Property viewings are a regular part of an estate agent’s working week. However, booking the viewings and making sure that they’re worthwhile is time consuming. Diana would have liked to employ more staff to support her with bookings and initial tenant vetting, but needed to make a strong business case to the head office.
Solutions
Diana approached Get Ahead and we quickly came up with two solutions to support her. We arranged for her to use our telephone answering service: our experienced team answered her calls in person, dealing with basic queries and relaying messages to Diana.
In parallel, we linked her up with administration expert Lisa. After a brief onboarding process, Lisa began coordinating bookings. Lisa received requests for bookings via phone calls and emails, and organised viewings by area so that Diana could use her time as effectively as possible.
Occasionally, when Diana was away, Lisa would also coordinate viewings via online portal Viewber.
Lisa also briefly vetted potential tenants, gently extracting details like whether they could afford the property and if it were the right size for their household. This saved a lot of time in the long run – only holding viewings for tenants who are suitable makes good business sense.
Outcomes
Diana quickly recognised how much time she saved by outsourcing basic tasks to Get Ahead. This freed her up to use her natural talent for selling and letting properties, and concentrate on her core responsibilities to her vendors, landlords and head office.
Lisa supported Diana for eight months. In this time, Diana saw how Lisa’s role grew from just one hour a week to a whole day a week. This helped Diana to make a business case to the head office for employing a permanent member of staff to provide support with booking viewings. Ultimately, this helped the Leeds office of Sanderson Weatherall achieve its targets and provide outstanding property services to landlords and tenants in West Yorkshire.
