Investing in World-Class Technology
The world isn’t the same as it was 10 years ago. The increase in smartphone usage, the advancement in digital payments and a need for on-demand “everything” has created an entirely new standard of consumer behaviours and expectations. When a customer wants something, they want it yesterday! In my opinion, the estate agency industry hasn’t adapted sufficiently to the fast-paced world we live in, and this needs to change. At Douglas&Gordon, we’re committed to keeping up with our customers’ evolving desires and are working hard to remove the common pain points from the sales and lettings process.
How will we do this?
By investing in world-class technology.
Of course, getting from where we are now to where we want to be is not going to happen overnight, but I’m confident that our trailblazing mentality, willingness to go further than others, and our famous customer-centric attitude will get us there.
Today
A successful estate agency is underpinned by two things, the calibre of its people and the capability of its technology. I can confidently say that our teams are the best in the business – recruited and trained exclusively in-house, with the attitude to deliver exceptional results. We also have a great bespoke in-house operating system, called Edge, which allows us to be agile and to move rapidly in the directions we seek to go. However, we are still barely scratching the surface when it comes to using technology to disrupt the industry, and we know we can do better.
Reinvent
We are now investing in and expanding our tech team to build a new platform, with data and automation at the heart of everything we do. This has required us to challenge our current ways of working and reinvent ourselves and the way we do business. As the needs and desires of our customers change, we must change too. We hold ourselves accountable to produce better results for our customers and we aim to become more efficient through process automation, and through the strategic use of data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Connect
We are excited to see the emergence in the UK of a vibrant ecosystem of proptech companies and start-ups / scale-ups, delivering new data sources and new tools for us to plug into. We are actively working with a number of these businesses, and we encourage such innovators to reach out to us to explore partnering opportunities. We don’t hold the monopoly on great ideas, so we value working with like-minded people and companies.
Commitment
Taking this step forward means we now have a responsibility to deliver – for our customers, our communities and our colleagues. We are committed to help reshape this industry to deliver a faster and easier selling and letting experience. With an eye towards our customers’ needs in the future, we will optimise the process by removing the common pain points. And we will not shy away from investing both time and money to make this happen.
Execute
The strength of our current in-house operating system puts us in a great place to succeed. Our continued success will come from hard work and stellar execution. Our business leaders are dedicated to re-engineering our processes to solve the difficult problems our customers face. Our tech team is passionate about the platform they are building and are working extremely hard to bring our re-designed processes to life.
Confidence
Douglas&Gordon means confidence that you’re getting the best result possible. Confidence that the process is right. And confidence in the people and the technology responsible for selling and letting your property.
