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The good, the bad and the ugly. The process of handling new business enquiries comes in all shapes and sizes. To help you better understand what happens in your firm and where there might be room for improvement, Clare Yates, Senior Business Development Manager at tmgroup shares 5 questions that every firm should know the answer to… 

1. What happens when potential clients ring through to your firm? 

Do they get straight through to a dedicated team, trained and responsible for handling new business enquiries? Or do they have to speak to a Receptionist first and negotiate their way to the right department, navigate a complex call answering service, or wait on hold hoping someone will eventually pick up the phone?

If you don’t know the answer, why not try ringing the number displayed on your website and experiencing it first-hand? After all, speed kills the competition – and it’s critical that a potential new client gets through to the right person quickly. 

2. Is every call being handled by the best person for the job?

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a dedicated new business team, your calls are most likely making their way to your Fee Earners’ office… and the start of a make or break situation. 

If your team is ready and willing to take the call, there’s plenty of opportunity for the caller to be nurtured into a happy client. However, if you find yourself “drawing straws” before eventually picking up the phone with a sigh, the opportunity is at risk. 

According to research by Professor Ian Cooper:

• Over 85% of firms treat ‘residential conveyancing quotes’ as a purely ‘low level’ administrative task.

• 90% of call handlers admit that they don’t actively like handling quotes, or are not very good at it. Not exactly a recipe for conversion success!

What’s happening in your team? Is the best-skilled person picking up the phone with a smile? Or is the only available person clock-watching as they try to wrap up the call and get back to their other work?

Not sure? Well, the right person is probably really easy to spot as they clearly enjoy handling these sort of calls and are already proving successful in winning new business. If you don’t already record or listen to calls, this could be a great place to start to identify who has a natural affinity with customers.

3. Do you have a robust process in place for making the most of each call?

Even the most willing of call handlers risk falling flat without a proper process in place. Is everyone using the same checklist to help make the most of every opportunity?

Professor Ian Cooper also reports that “in over a third of all calls, the party did not know who they were talking to, as the caller’s name was not taken, and the call handler had not introduced themselves!”

If you don’t have a process in place (or think the one you do have needs refining), here’s a simple checklist of questions to ask:

• Name, email address and telephone number

• Why are they moving? New school catchment area? Downsizing? 

• Where are they moving to? Is it local?

• When do they need or expect to be in their new home? 

• Who is moving with them? Children? Parents? Pets? 

The latter questions are particularly important, as understanding the story behind each move can help to shape the call, as well as get every customer journey off to the best start.

4. Are you following up after every call?

It’s critical that you follow up with the caller if you want to convert the opportunity into new business – and not let your efforts go to waste. 

Sadly, not every firm is doing this well. Some simply assume that the caller will come back to them if they want to move things forward. However, this approach can prompt the caller to take their business elsewhere – assuming you just didn’t care enough to get back in touch.

Don’t be disheartened. There is business to be won and a quick follow-up call an hour after the original conversation can make all the difference to your conversion rates. You can even warm the caller up by saying “I’ll send you a quick email now and phone you back in an hour or so to see if you have any questions.” 

5. Are you measuring your conversion rates? 

Whatever approach you are taking to handling new business enquiries, you should have a good understanding of how well things are going. 

• Do you record your calls? 

• Do you know what your conversion rate is?

• Do you know who has the best call handling skills in your team and what sets them apart?

• Do you know where the call came from? Your website? A flyer drop? Recent social media campaign? 

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can look for patterns and see where there is room for improvement. You can also start making changes and monitoring overall success. 

If you would like to find out more about how to handle your new business enquiries more effectively, please get in touch with me: clare.yates@tmgroup.co.uk.

Please be aware that the following highways products – supplied by PlanVal – are increasing in price on 1st July 2019. The price of Landmark Homecheck Flood will also be changing from this date.

Details below:

The following highways reports will be increasing by £6 on 1st July 2019:

• Local Authority highways enquiry (HighwaysLA)

• Local Authority Highways Lite (HighwayRA)

• Highway search standard with opinion Commercial (PVHwayOC) 

• Highway search standard with opinion Residential (PVHwayOR)

The price of Landmark Homecheck Flood (FloodRisk) will be increasing in price from 1st July 2019:  

It was £20 plus VAT (£24) and will now be £25 plus VAT (£30) - an increase of £6. 

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

Please be aware that from early June, RATI-M will no longer be available to order on tmconvey.

Moving forward, if you’d like to add a RATI product to your order, you’ll just need to search RATI-O and add it to your case. 

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

From early June, you’ll be able to order the following Legalinx reports on tmconvey - in addition to the CourtChex (winding Up Search), which is already available.

The following reports will be available to order via the tmconvey platform:

• Comprehensive Bankruptcy Search (Search of Land Registry and Bankruptcy Court)

Checks are carried out at the Insolvency Service England and Wales which identifies any current bankruptcy orders. An additional check is then carried out at the Land Registry which identifies any pending bankruptcy orders.

• Gazette Report

This report will provide details of any insolvency notices published in the London, Edinburgh or Belfast Gazettes.

• Individual Pending Bankruptcy Searches

Our Individual Bankruptcy Searches offer compliance and minimise risk through ascertaining whether there are any pending bankruptcy petitions lodged against an individual within the jurisdiction of the RCJ. Legalinx physically visit, and search, at the Royal Courts of Justice and Central London County Court to determine whether any previous bankruptcy petitions have been issued in the last 5 years against a debtor.

The following additional reports will be available on request, by contacting our Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk 

• Foreign Insolvency Plus Report

• Insolvency Plus

• Northern Ireland Court of Justice & EJO Check

FCI have joined forces with Terrafirma to deliver a new search report, combining the current Premium Residential Environmental Report with Terrafirma’s official CON29M coal mining search. 

• Cost: £80.00 + VAT

• Location on tmconvey: Under the Environmental section

• Sample report: Click here to see a sample report

Available on tmconvey from early June, this search report combines the Environmental, Flood, Ground Stability, Energy and Infrastructure of the FCI Premium Residential Search, with a Terrafirma CON29M, which automatically includes nearby subsidence claims data (previously only available at additional cost from The Coal Authority). 

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

Following on from updating our print summary earlier this year, we’re extending these changes to all of our printable summaries, so you’ll also see the following enhancements in your printable Case summary, as well as your Fee summary. 

• An image of the maps you have used to mark up a site

• Search Alerts generated against a site

• Additional questions for all searches ordered

Groundsure’s Preliminary Unexploded Ordnance Risk Assessment will be available to order on tmconvey from early June – identifying the potential risks from unexploded ordnance (UXO) that could affect your client’s construction projects. 

• Cost: £195 + VAT

• Location on tmconvey: Under the Environmental section

• Sample report: Click here to see a sample report

About the report

Based on a 10km radius from the red dot marking the property, the report covers:

• Analysis of over 5,000 projects to mitigate bomb risks on  development sites since 1991

• Accurate bomb density mapping based from Ordnance Survey  maps 1941 -1944 

• Extensive archive of previous bomb excavation works and  threat assessment Bomb, V1 and V2 strike locations from original war records and area damage assessments (where available) 

• UXO risk assessment – contour maps applied around potential source of strike locations 

• The cost of the Preliminary report is discounted from the Stage 2 Detailed Risk Assessment

This report covers the possible health and safety risks for contractors under CDM 2015. Groundsure have also partnered with industry specialists Dynasafe BACTEC to provide a comprehensive view on the risks, so they can be factored into a site assessment.

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

Terrafirma have made a couple of changes to their reports, including adding a mine entry interpretive report to their CON29M and Ground report, as well as including a purchased Cheshire Salts Search in the Ground report. 

Mine Entry Interpretive Report added to CON29M and Ground report

Terrafirma have now included, as standard, a mine entry interpretive report for sites located within 20 metres of a coal mine entry. 

This is available within their official CON29M and Terrafirma Ground report – at no additional cost. 

The Ground report now includes the purchased Cheshire Salts Search 

The Ground report now includes the purchased Cheshire Salts Search as an appendix. This is to provide clarity to their brine mining risk assessment (including such assessment of brine mining hazards outside the Cheshire Brine Compensation District) and that of claims information obtained from a purchased Cheshire Salts Search. 

Please be aware that where such information is obtained, the terms and conditions of the Cheshire Salts Search and supplier may also apply.

REMINDER: Further Action Reports

Just a reminder that, even though the effective pass rate for the CON29M and Ground reports is now 99%, Terrafirma’s ‘Action’ reports remain in place and available if recommended. 

If you need to order such a report, please get in touch with your Account Manager or Helpdesk in the first instance. 

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk 

Crossrail data will soon be available on tmconvey, marking the latest in a series of new data layers added across 2019. 

Once enabled, you’ll be able to select ‘Crossrail’ from your mapping data layers and see the proposed Crossrail stations, as well as the route – clearly displayed in pink (where the track runs through a tunnel) and blue (where the track runs over the surface). 

You can also click on a station or section of the line to create a pop-up box – including location information and type (e.g. tunnel). Please note, where there is more than one section of the line in a specific area, you’ll see 2 pop-up information boxes.

You’ll also notice a link to the Crossrail site, which opens up a new tab showing you an engineering drawing of that section of the line, so you can see it in relation to the other buildings around it. 

How do I turn on this new data layer?

If you would like to turn on this new data layer, your TM administrator will need to update your company preference by following the below steps:

1. Go to ‘System settings’ on the tmconvey Services Dashboard

2. Select ‘System defaults’

3. Select ‘View’

4. Select ‘Mapping defaults’ 

5. If you scroll down, you will see a new section called ‘Map Data Layers’ – and various options to choose from including the new ‘Crossrail route’.  

6. Once you have settled on your choice, click ‘Save’

If you have any questions or queries, please contact your Account Manager, or get in touch with our friendly Helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

With nearly 2 decades of experience in the search industry, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at tmgroup, Paul Albone, looks back at some of the key events and challenges that have shaped the search industry. 

2004

IT challenges were a common barrier to helping property professionals make the most of the technological advancements available 

For those of us “of a certain age”, we remember a time before the internet (and certainly the bandwidth of ADSL) and when a phone was just that – a phone! I have colleagues who used to visit client offices to perform user training and were met with a shared 56k dial up modem and the characteristic boing-boing when a connection to the internet had been established.

I say that to set some context as to the IT challenges that were faced when trying to deliver content rich mapping to conveyancers using the ‘new’ OS MasterMap™, which tmgroup launched back in 2004. This was some 6 months before Google Maps existed and 8 years before Apple launched their mapping product.  

Back then, tmgroup was operating as one of three NLIS channels, which, via the NLIS Hub, was trying to connect the 350+ Local Authorities and other data providers as the first steps towards e-Conveyancing. 

It wasn’t an easy ride. I particularly remember having to manage an increase in order rejection rates after launching our mapping, as Local Authorities complained that they were using up too much coloured ink on their printers when trying to process the orders – eventually resulting in us having to revert back to a black and white map with a ‘red line’ property boundary.

2005

Bowing only to mandated change led to relatively slow levels of progress in the property search space – and prompted the creation of OSCRE

With 30 years of IT and Development experience behind me, I have been surprised by the relatively slow levels of progress in the property search space, which does rise to the challenges of mandated change – but otherwise accepts a status quo. 

Back in 2005, I got involved in the PISCES (now OSCRE) organisation, which was addressing the need to create standards so that property-related information could be exchanged between businesses. 

I was lucky enough to chair the working group, which was looking at property searches, and together we managed to create some standards for the messages needed to order, deliver, query and chase property searches. These are still in use today by many conveyancing and property search data providers.  

2007-2010

The advent of HIPS acted as a catalyst for change and created high levels of operational efficiency with integrated ordering

Forced change can often act as a catalyst for achieving IT projects quickly, and this was certainly the case with the advent of HIPS. Through a 48-hour session, a new standard was adopted by all the major organisations, which allowed the ‘new’ HIP providers to order bundles of searches via B2B integration and XML data.  

Of course, this created high levels of operational efficiency, but also had its own challenges. I remember one tmgroup client who performed a software release only for me to get a call the following morning.  The code they had released was not ‘listening’ to the return message correctly and so had got stuck in a loop and they had ordered over 3,000 LR OC1 orders in the space of 15 minutes. By the time they called me, these had all been ordered and returned at a cost of £3 per order! 

2011

The cost of mortgage fraud was estimated at £1 billion – and many lenders reviewed their criteria for securing charges on a title  

In January 2011, the National Fraud Authority published its second annual fraud indicator, which estimated the cost of mortgage fraud in the UK to be £1 billion. A third of this was estimated to be conveyancer-led fraud! 

These facts led most lenders to review the criteria with which conveyancers could act for the lender on securing the charge on the title. During this time, tmgroup worked with lenders to understand their decision criteria and how this could be monitored and alerts created when criteria changed. We called this platform ‘TM Secure’. Not only did it look at the risk profiling of the law firm through datasets provided by people like Experian, but also looked to control the delivery of the mortgage offer and other steps of the process in a secure and robust fashion.

2015

Breaking down silos and introducing collaboration saw the birth of the digital customer journey

Integrated ordering continues to be a focus within the search industry and is enabling the change from paper documents to PDF versions and now more recently to ‘data’ payloads. By providing the data, it is possible to develop systems that can make decisions on the search results and create alerts to users where investigation and follow up actions are needed.

Since 2015, there has been an increased focus on collaboration and the digital journey of the consumer. We are seeing the emergence of portals, which provide a window into the transaction for the homemover and aim to create higher levels of transparency. Our tmconnect platform does exactly that in order to join up the estate agent, conveyancer and consumer with a single view of the case.  

Add to that the ability to ‘message’ the professionals involved with a home purchase and fill in documents online, and we are finally beginning to break down the silos and increase the collaborative feel of the transaction.

2017

Improving the home buying and selling process has been high on the industry’s agenda throughout my career 

There have been several attempts at home buying reform since the early 2000s, initially led by the Land Registry and their e-conveyancing programme.  This was followed by an industry-led group badged as the eHomebuyingForum, and then the Law Society-led Veyo project. Bringing us up to the present day, where we are currently in the grips of a Government-led programme to ‘Improve the home buying and selling process’.  

The quantity of attempts demonstrates that there is a reasonable understanding that the home moving experience in England and Wales is not what it might be. Yet it has not been possible to deliver on many of the goals of making the process, quicker, cheaper and more transparent – in other words, delivering high levels of efficiency leading to increased levels of certainty.

All too often, the failed attempts at achieving these lofty goals have been due to a siloed approach to single stakeholders and a lack of traction within their core market. However, change is beginning to happen – led by an increased appetite to invest in and adopt technology from multiple stakeholders across a transaction.

2019

Estate agents and conveyancers are beginning to put the homemover at the heart of their digital customer journeys

We are beginning to see an almost joined up approach between estate agents and conveyancers, who are both putting the homemover at the heart of their own customer journeys – and digital ones at that. 

Upfront information (no, not HIPs) appears to be a focus for many estate agency groups too. This is very promising, because if we can break down some of the trust barriers between the estate agents and the conveyancers, then the sharing of this information is eminently achievable.

As we head towards 2020 and beyond, I am encouraged by the industry’s openness for change. In the property search space, this is leading to the delivery of property ‘data’ and refined data leading to decision informing actions. If we couple this ability and appetite with the innovative solutions being created, I really do feel we are finally in the advent of change.

We are no longer in the world of shared dial up modems, and we all embrace technology in our everyday lives. As a technologist at heart, and a software developer of the past, I am finally encouraged that change is happening and the last 20 years have not gone to waste!