Customers are now willing to perform activities that don’t require the expertise of a specialist (the negotiator). On-line property searches are now mainstream activity thus estate agents are being progressively cut out from being able to engage with customers at this early stage of their search. This has promoted the need to capture data at any opportunity to understand who is in the market for property. The marketing of property has also changed from traditional mailing of details to web-based display and thus the role of web-sites has seen an exponential increase in importance in the sales process. Less quantifiable is dealing with perceptions of “shady” business practices and scepticism surrounding performance levels. 

Whilst technology cannot fully manage personal behaviour, it can drive the processes and procedures to establish consistent service levels and provide the evidence of professional conduct. Fundamentally though, technology should perform a supporting role to your business to allow you to adapt processes and procedures to meet customer needs. Systems that mandate what processes and procedures must be followed can restrict growth and be a significant source of frustration.