CASE STUDY

Castledene Sales & Lettings

Award winning estate agent makes move to improve customer service

Customer

Castledene Sales and Lettings

Location

North East of England

Business

Estate Agency

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The Business

Castledene Sales and Lettings is a leading estate agent in the north east of England and has been recognised in national awards such as Sunday Times Letting Agent of the Year.

As members of ARLA (Association of Retail Letting Agents) customer service is at the forefront of Castledene’s business and the focus ensures their customers receive a level of service that surpasses expectations of both customers and competitors.

Operating across six branches, the multi-award winning property management and sales company covers the whole of County Durham.

The Challenge

The company has experienced rapid growth and is recognised within the industry for their investment in people and training of staff. Managing Director, John Paul, is always looking for ways to improve and grow the company to the next level. The next step was to enhance customer experience on the phone.

Castledene wanted to:

Improve the communication infrastructure throughout the branches and be on one centralised system rather than being over multiple suppliers.
Reduce costs on calls and line rental to consolidate the payments into one monthly, affordable payment.
Introduce reporting to show how staff are performing against KPI’s when customers were calling and the staff were chasing arrears.
Develop an in-house competitive attitude to be better than the other branches in terms of customer service.

Our Solution

Systems IT recommended the Gamma Horizon hosted phone solution and linked that with Akixi call reporting and management software, including call recording.

We used a Gamma converged line in all six branches so that all the staff could benefit from the voice only network, as well as a dedicated internet service across the business.

Akixi reporting software helps the directors and the Office Managers to see how they could improve their customer service. Within the lettings and estate agency industry there is a lot of negativity surrounding service. Castledene now has the tools to report on any missed business and to evaluate the requirements of individual offices.

The Akixi software has given Castledene the ability to place staff, talk about the customer service levels and also safeguard themselves through call recording so that nothing can be disputed.

”We decided to use Systems IT because of the reliability in their service and the way we could take the next step in improving our service to the customers and clients.
We wanted to know exactly how we were performing on a weekly basis and wanted the branches to develop a competitive nature. The call reporting software has instantly had an impact but I also believe that we have the support of the Systems IT team and our account manager to make changes and take the necessary steps to keep our company on top of the competition. We have been helped in every way and everything is quick and clear with the company.”

John Paul, Castledene Property Management, Sales and Lettings

The Result

Systems IT has now been their solution for nearly six months and has already improved customer service. The hosted solution has:

  • It has allowed them to grow other aspects of their business and improve the support given to staff through their training section within the company.
  • Improved customer and user experience through the hosted system.
  • New infrastructure that moves in line with the changes in telephony
  • Simplified and centralised management of the system and remote support through the Systems IT helpdesk
  • Reduction of cost
  • Clear indication of KPI and customer service levels for the company
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