Estate agencies: a missed seller call can cost you a listing

An agency’s phone mainly receives buyers and prospective tenants responding to a listing. There are many of them, they ask repetitive questions and, if they do not get an answer, they may come back through another channel because the property interests them.

The seller, on the other hand, is rarer and more fickle. They are not necessarily attached to one agency; they compare, and they choose the one that made them feel taken seriously. Missing them means letting a competitor carry out the valuation, and with it, win the relationship.

The paradox of the profession lies in how it is organised: negotiators earn their living outside the agency, at viewings, at valuation appointments or at the notary’s office. On Saturdays, the busiest day for viewings, the agency may be running with reduced staff.

For private individuals, it is the opposite. They think about their project in the evening, after work, or on Sunday while browsing listings. The moment they pick up the phone does not always coincide with the moment someone is sitting at the desk.

Finally, there are the invisible lulls in the day: the lunch break, the moment the only assistant is showing a client out, the quarter of an hour when everyone is already on the phone. A call that comes in during those minutes meets the same unanswered ringing as it would at ten in the evening.

Many questions about a listing are factual: is the property still available, which floor is it on, is there parking, how much are the service charges? If this information is provided from the agency’s property records, these questions can be answered immediately, without taking up a negotiator’s time.

The call then becomes an opportunity for qualification: budget, financing in progress or not, priority criteria, availability for viewings. The negotiator receives contacts that have already been sorted and devotes their callbacks to the most advanced buyers.

One limit applies: the exact address of a property or details the seller wishes to keep private are only disclosed in line with the agency’s policy. The information entrusted to call handling must therefore be chosen with the same care as the text of the listing.

The key is not to lump the owner who wants to sell in with buyers. As soon as a caller mentions a valuation, putting their property up for sale or letting it, the conversation must change gear: property address, type and approximate floor area, project timeframe, best time to call back.

Depending on how the agency is organised, this call warrants an immediate transfer to the agency’s transfer number or, failing that, booking a valuation appointment in its calendar. The owner hangs up with a date, not a promise of a callback.

This care taken over the first contact continues throughout the mandate. A seller whose call was handled seriously expects the same responsiveness for viewing reports, and will remember it when deciding whether or not to renew their exclusive mandate.

Agencies that manage rental properties receive a third category of calls: tenants reporting a breakdown or water damage, landlords asking how a matter is progressing. These calls do not bring in mandates, but a poorly received tenant can lead to an unhappy landlord, and an unhappy landlord may take back the management of their property.

Clear sorting between what requires prompt action and what can wait for the property manager the next day protects both the managed portfolio and the agency’s reputation with its landlords.

Alyas answers the agency’s calls when the team is out at appointments: the voice agent announces itself as an AI, gives details about properties based on your information, qualifies buyers, transfers sellers to the number you have chosen or offers them a slot in your connected Google Calendar or Cal.com, and leaves you a summary of every call. You can try it free for ten days.