Playbook, estate agency
Handling viewing requests outside branch hours
Viewing enquiries do not arrive during the working day, they arrive in the evening from people who have been looking at listings on the sofa, and whoever replies first gets the appointment. An assistant cannot put a viewing in the diary, but the questions that come attached to a viewing request (weekend availability, whether it is accompanied, how much notice a tenanted property needs, whether it is still on) are mostly fixed answers, and answering them at nine at night is the difference between an enquiry and a lead.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for appointment booking holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A viewing on a tenanted property needs notice to the occupier under most tenancy regimes, so the availability answer here is constrained by somebody who is not the agency or the applicant.
- Availability of the property itself moves faster than any listing page, so the assistant has to arrange interest without asserting a status it cannot verify.
- Applicants ask about viewing and about the property in the same message, which means one reply straddles the safe factual half and the negotiator's half.
- The competition is another agency's response time on the same evening, so a reply that captures the enquiry properly is worth more here than a reply that is merely accurate.
How it arrives
- how do i book a viewing
- can i view at the weekend
- is this property still available
- can i view tomorrow evening after work
- is the viewing accompanied or do i collect keys
- how much notice do the tenants need
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How viewings are arranged at your branch | Accompanied or unaccompanied, the hours you offer including evenings and weekends, which properties are by appointment only, and what happens if nobody turns up. This is the factual core and it rarely appears anywhere on an agency site. |
|---|---|
| Notice requirements on tenanted properties | How much notice the occupier gets, who arranges it, and the realistic lead time that produces. Applicants assume a viewing can happen tomorrow, and the honest answer prevents a booking that then has to be moved. |
| What an applicant needs to provide before a viewing | Identification, proof of funds or a mortgage agreement in principle where you ask for it, and whether that is required before or after the appointment. Agencies differ on this and applicants find out at the worst moment. |
| Where the live listing lives | The page that carries current availability, the floorplan and the details sheet. The assistant should point at the page you maintain rather than assert a status, because availability changes faster than any indexed copy of it. |
The reply
Viewings are accompanied by one of our negotiators and we do offer Saturday mornings as well as weekday evenings. If the property is tenanted we need to give the occupier notice, so that usually means a couple of days rather than tomorrow. I cannot see live availability or put an appointment in the diary from here, so the fastest route is to leave your name, email and which property you are interested in, and a negotiator will come back to confirm both.
It answers the two scheduling questions people actually have, weekends and how soon, before disclaiming anything. Explaining the notice requirement stops the applicant reading a delay as the agency being slow. Asking for the property in the handover is what makes the reply a lead rather than a conversation, and it is the one detail the negotiator cannot work without.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor names a property or asks for a specific date, since availability and the diary both sit outside what the assistant can see.
I cannot check availability or book a slot from here, so let me get this to a negotiator. Leave your name, email and which property you are asking about and somebody will confirm a time with you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm that a property is still available, or that a viewing is booked.
- Never offer a specific date or time as though it were held.
- Never say a tenanted property can be viewed at short notice.
- Never confirm who else has viewed a property, or how many viewings it has had.
Questions
- Can it not just say whether a property is available?
- Only as accurately as the page it read, and listings go under offer faster than pages update. Pointing at the live listing and getting the enquiry to a negotiator is both safer and, at nine at night, exactly what the applicant wanted anyway.
- Is capturing a viewing request worth much without a diary?
- On this kind of site it is most of the value. The enquiry that goes unanswered until Tuesday goes to whichever agent replied on Sunday, so a reply that answers the practical questions and takes a name changes who gets the appointment.
- Should it ask for proof of funds?
- It can explain that you require it and at what stage, which is useful preparation. It should not collect or assess it, because it cannot receive documents and a judgement about an applicant's position is not its to make.
Keep reading
- Everything for a estate agencyViewings, fees, referencing and deposit rules are answerable at any hour. Valuing a property or discussing an offer is not.
- Handling appointment booking in generalIt cannot write into a calendar. The job is removing every reason not to book, then handing over with the details already gathered.
- Seller fees and landlord fees, kept in separate lanesSellers ask about commission and tie ins, landlords ask what the management fee covers. Same words, different audiences, different answers.
- Deposit questions where the wrong answer is a compliance problemTwo different payments, two different rules and one word. What the assistant explains about protection, deductions and what is refundable.
- Access questions about a property, answered before the appointmentFloors, lifts, thresholds and parking. Why nobody should have to attend a viewing to discover a property does not work for them.
Try it on your own material
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