Are Your Conveyancers Bad for Your Business?
Are Your Conveyancers Bad for Your Business?
My favourite question to ask an Estate Agent on first introduction is "what are your pet hates about a conveyancer?" The answers are always the same. Always. Lack of communication, calls not returned, lack of solutions to problems, conveyor belt of case handlers, inexperienced staff, does not use email, "I will need to speak to my principal", "sorry he is engaged and his secretary in on another call, can you please call back" and "no we did not receive the fax".
Of course conveyancers must be prompt. From a business point of view, unless and until an exchange of contracts takes place, a conveyancer might not get paid. This has always been the case. Yet many conveyancers still fail to grasp this. Even now. With numbers of transactions as low as they are, and with buyers more commonly getting cold feet, it is so important to ensure a prompt exchange of contracts - though not a hasty or reckless one of course.
However, conveyancers must be more than prompt. Conveyancers cannot afford to provide anything other than a first class service, not in the present climate. Yet there are still those whose quality is suspect.
With clients demanding ever better service, mistakes and tardiness will lose business, and will surely damage your agency's reputation if you have introduced the client to the conveyancers in the first place - and at a time when you least need it. Conveyancers who recognise efficiency, and who demonstrate a drive to improve transactions, will be an asset in helping you to move through the current hard times, stronger on the other side.
So in what way does delay and bad practice continue, and what traits should conveyancers be looking to correct?
Delay is often client instructed, so ignoring that, delay more commonly revolves around standards themselves. Standards can often slip as a result of a low fee. This is not to say that cheap conveyancing cannot result in a successful transaction. Of course it can. However, even at cheap fees, profit has to be made, so corners may be cut. It then ends up being the other solicitor in the transaction (who charges a fair price) who makes up for their failings.
Cheap fees, can also bread inexperience. Even now some firms consider the recruitment of non-qualified staff as some miracle cure to pulling through the economic crisis. Does this not hark back to the failing model of call centres and high volume workloads? The news only too recently has shown this model to be failing.
There simply needs to a hunger to 'go that extra mile' in terms of service to the client and to deliver it - a presence of foresight to want to win repeat business. In peak times, many conveyancers did not have to go looking for the next piece of work, but now, every firm should be demonstrating a drive to survive the recession and provide a winning service that complements both their own and your agencys' businesses.
There are a multitude of ways a conveyancer can always improve, resulting in faster transactions, and better overall service to the whole process. We see it right now, for example:
offer user-friendly HIPs without invalid personal drainage searches.
provide up-to-date official copies if the HIP copies are not recent.
use up-to-date Protocol Forms.
make sure coloured plans are in fact coloured
request leasehold management information as soon as possible without
being prompted into action by the Buyer.
avoid raising pre-contract enquiries for the sake of it, but have confidence
and accept that some transactions do not require any to be asked.
keep Estate Agents informed - whether by a simple phone call, email,
weekly email/fax updates - you can help.
avoid intellectual point-scoring battles - be it about whether a property
needs a FENSA certificate for a window pane fitted around a cat flap 5
years ago, or whether a statutory declaration supporting 20+ years
access is enough without indemnity insurance.
think, and consider properly whether they can dismiss the 'issue' and
move on without resorting to an automatic request for indemnity insurance
and getting everyone's backs up.
maintain good relationships with the Agents whether through email
updates, seminars, in-house training or just a simple chat over coffee.
If conveyancers have no drive and provide poor service, they may lose clients, they will lose referrals, and word spreads. They may also taint and hurt the businesses they work with -your Estate Agency. Conveyancers should look to their standards and make sure they are as high as they can be. Now is the ideal time to ensure that quality standards are a priority and that you are aligned with those firms you feel can deliver for your business.
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