JULIAN WADDEN

ABOUT THE AGENT

Julian Wadden is a four-branch Sales, Lettings and Property Management agent based in South Manchester.

"We see live chat as being an extra colleague in the branch. It frees up the rest of the team to do what they do best; negotiating lets and sales, converting pipelines and generating business"

Hass Mahmood, Director at Julian Wadden

WHAT LED YOU TO CONSIDER LIVE CHAT?

A modern, forward-thinking agent that likes to invest in the latest technology, Julian Wadden keeps all their systems up to date religiously and even offer their own customer portals. They believe it helps them to stand out from their competition, so it’s little wonder they wanted to explore the benefits of offering live chat too.

Being busy before Covid struck and “relentless” since, as says Director Hass Mahmood, their interest in live chat was stepped up in early 2021. Julian Wadden wanted to remove some of the call volume pressure on their team, particularly the answering of simpler requests such as ‘could I view this property?’.

They also recognised, particularly in the wake of Covid, that more people than ever were online and for longer periods.

They asked local businesses already using live chat for their opinion, but the main driving factor was asking themselves,

“How do we improve our technology offering for our customers and engage with people who perhaps wouldn't before"

HOW DID YOU BECOME AWARE OF YOMDEL?

Julian Wadden had already heard of Yomdel live chat as they have used mystery shopping services provided by sister company, KnowYourMarket, for the last four years.

Each quarter they create scenarios for the KnowYourMarket team to execute. Examples being a phone call to the Julian Wadden sales team, an email to lettings or vice versa. They differ each quarter but can range from basic applicant registration to more complex conversations surrounding their service offering, their customer portal, MYJW.

Working from head office, this allows Hass to “better understand the experience of the customer.”

“It’s our moment of truth” he says. “It’s a fantastic way to do it. It’s measurable and gives us excellent insight, whilst also recognising colleagues and branches offering excellent customer service.”

As well as Yomdel live chat, Julian Wadden also considered other suppliers but their existing good working relationship always stood Yomdel in good stead…

WHY DID YOU EVENTUALLY CHOOSE YOMDEL?

One of the main deciding factors for Hass and Julian Wadden was Yomdel’s ability to integrate with their existing - recently implemented - CRM system, Reapit.

“We didn’t want live chat to reduce our call volumes but then increase our admin as we process transcripts. Yomdel seamlessly pushes leads straight into our CRM”.

Yomdel’s understanding of the estate agency industry also played its part with Hass citing, “there are lots of live chat services out there but very few that truly know how we work”.

Chat operators start with a great base knowledge while the quality of the conversations and ability to qualify leads improves further as the agent provides feedback.

Hass was also impressed to hear that Yomdel is 100% human resourced. He had previously assumed that all live chat services were robot (bot) operated and, as such, had a low opinion of them.

Interestingly, Hass mentioned that simply having live chat on their website and so giving the impression of a cutting-edge agency, whether a visitor used it or not, was important to them.

Finally, and as a lot of products seem to, it came down to look and cost,

“Yomdel looks good. It’s modern, slick and cost-effective.”

HOW DID YOU FIND THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS?

Thankfully live chat is a relatively simple piece of software and so can usually go live in a matter of weeks with minimal input from the agent.

Once the scoping document had been filled in and returned the system was installed and rolled out seamlessly.

“We didn’t have any issues. Lucy dealt with us through it all and continues to look after us.” Hass stated, as Julian Wadden went live in April 2021.

“The acid test is if I don’t hear of frustrations from the team! They have all fed back to say it is helping them and has been a good addition to support their roles.”

WHAT RESULTS HAVE YOU SEEN SINCE?

The important bit, most would say.

Hass and the team at Julian Wadden are happy with the impact live chat has had stating, “what it looks and feels like is as important as it is being business-generating”.

Luckily, like all customers, they have the analytics to prove live chat’s worth, too, as Yomdel provides an insightful client dashboard.

• The peak time for chats is 10am - 4pm serving to reduce call volumes during the day
• There’s a steady volume of chats being responded to throughout the evening
• The average response time was just 8.9 seconds - quicker than even answering a phone call!
• The average chat lasts over 9 minutes – our agents are not just taking messages
• 13% of the leads received were sellers

“We see live chat as being an extra colleague in the branch. It frees up the rest of the team to do what they do best; negotiating lets and sales, converting pipelines and generating business”. Hass Mahmood, Director at Julian Wadden

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