Zoopla plans to spend millions in an effort to improve software offering
Published on 15th August 2019 by Laura West
Zoopla, one of the biggest property portals in the market, has announced an investment in its offering of estate agency software worth millions of pounds, including a new strategy. The British company, which provides users with access to a wide range of information, including current value estimates, statistics, trends and sold house prices for homes across the UK. It is estimated that approximately 10,000 letting and estate agents will begin to see the updates to its products shortly.
Ultimately, the final goal for Zoopla is to combine the complete range of its products into one mobile enabled service which has the potential to lead the market. Zoopla has also confirmed that until this merging takes place, the full suite of Zoopla’s existing software services and products will continue to operate with full support.
This new strategy from Zoopla will be lead by Carl Olivier, the property portal’s new director of product for productivity and software, who joined the organisation in February, after leaving his former position with Skype.
Proptech continues to revolutionise the way in which letting and estate agents interact with potential tenants and home buyers. It is hoped that this new initiative from Zoopla will lead to the delivery of what the property portal describes as a market leading client relationship management (CRM) system and software.
Zoopla’s plans follow the acquisition of ZPG, the parent company of Zoopla, by Silver Lake, an equity firm in the US for £2.2 billion in July 2019. In addition to Zoopla, ZPG also owns brands including uSwitch, the price comparison website, Money.co.uk, the finance comparison service, Hometrack and PrimeLocation, another property portal website.
The software products developed by Zoopla include those produced under the partnership of the Property Software Group, which ZPG acquired in 2016. This is in addition to software developed by Expert Agent, which the group acquired in 2017.
Charlie Bryant, managing director at Zoopla, has explained that as the property market experiences growing pressure from every angle, letting and estate agents need inventive and innovative partners who will provide them with the leading, competitive edge in order to be successful. Property management software in the UK provides the perfect solution for letting agents seeking ways to stand out from their competitors in a crowded market.
Mr Bryant goes on to explain that following continuing engagement with their letting and estate agent customers, and.
the collection of feedback gathered from them, Zoopla is heavily investing in technology which will provide a genuine hybrid lifecycle service for property. He also emphasises that it is increasingly important in the current climate to have a 24 hours a day, always available approach concerning consumers.
One key example in the research gathered by Zoopla has shown that the most common and popular time for a letting or estate agent to receive an inquiry from a potential tenant or buyer is between the hours of 8pm and 9pm in the evening.
Zoopla’s new software plan aims to provide letting and estate agents with the capability of disruptive mobile and online technologies, which will result in an improvement of efficiency for their businesses, and better quality of leads, which will in turn increase the value offered to their customers.
Charlie Bryant further states that with almost 10,000 letting and estate agents relying on software products from Zoopla in order to run their companies on a day-to-day basis, the organisation is committed to supporting their existing software platforms for agents. He explains that Zoopla’s future strategy will ensure continued improvement of the current products, in order to help agents run their companies in a more efficient manner every day.
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