Curchods is a 17 branch organisation providing residential sales services in the South of England.  Andrew Dewar, Managing Director of Curchods started working with SPA Microsystems in 2002, partnering with SPA to influence the development of Aspasia to fit the needs of residential agents.  Eighteen months on, he is now seeing the fruits of his decision to automate the company.

One of the fundamental benefits of Aspasia is its ability to network all branches, and it is this, that has provided the biggest results. For example, when a customer goes into one branch, they are often interested in seeing details of properties held in other branches. In days gone by, this would mean a phone call to each of those branches and the details being posted. Now, at the touch of a button, the customer can be given the details of everything held within the company that fits their needs, supporting a face-to-face discussion with the negotiator on the various options and a more pro-active selling opportunity.

Similarly with vendors, any member of staff in any branch can print off an activity report to provide the vendor with the full picture of activity on his property. This provides huge credibility and accuracy compared to the former manual system.  It would be very easy to forget to log a viewing or record the number of customers mailed on the index card held in one branch. With Aspasia, to create a file note is very easy, ensuring the complete picture is communicated to the customer.

The networking however, has led to less communications between offices. Less dialogue and telephone calls are made as information is readily available.  Andrew's take on this however is positive- "I can live with it as chatting between the offices doesn't pay the bills whilst more cross selling is being achieved!"

An important criterion for Andrew when selecting a system was the need for automation to provide a tool that supported their processes rather than control them. Aspasia has lived up to this need with one exception. "One thing the system forces is follow-ups. Many staff moan that the system is forcing them to do the follow-ups when they just want to get out and sell. I believe the follow ups are a critical part of the sales process so have no problem with it" said Andrew. He has also maintained the focus of negotiators on sales, retaining secretarial support in each branch to manage correspondence. Whilst the system allows anyone to manage the administration, Andrew has seen efficiencies accrued through negotiators having the ability to generate details when the secretary is not there, whilst retaining the normal roles and responsibilities during the day.

E-mail has also proven to provide efficiencies due to the speed of communications, however, another benefit has arisen which no-one had thought of in the development phase. With the ease of auditing activity, it is also possible to measure customer responsiveness. Curchods now find that they can make a judgement on how "real" a customer is based on their response to e-mails. If several communications have been sent and been met with silence, the proverbial 'wheat can be sorted from the chaff'. With 42% of their customer base now providing e-mail addresses, this has proven a useful form of analysis.

For many companies, there is a significant fear of the impact of computerisation. Prior to Curchods implementing Aspasia, they had 13 offices each with a standalone PC used by the secretary.  Like many companies, Curchods feared culture change and lost revenue during the implementation. These have never materialised – since the roll out, there have been no resignations, and no people being unable to achieve what they wanted to. "My oldest member of staff is 66 and said he would retire the day he had to use a computer. He is still here and I can't get him off it!" said Andrew. 

Much of the successful adoption by the staff was due to the training strategy. Training is provided by SPA, however Curchods elected to have a member of their staff fully trained and then to manage the training internally. Initially all staff were involved in discussions about what to expect and what would happen with the new system so that they were mentally prepared for the changes. Once installed, each staff member attended a morning's training session before going back to their office, returning a week later for a second session with ad-hoc on the job training where required. "Most staff picked it up from there and to this day, we have never used a manual. The key is not to force-feed staff and this is the mistake many companies make when installing new systems."

When discussing his views on Aspasia, Andrew was also in the process of writing an article for his own magazine talking about computerisation. His final comment, "Customers like to know you are computerised but are still humans too!"

June 2004