#OnlinevsTraditionalDebate by Peter Grant at VTUK

Yesterday we hosted the first of our 2014 bi-annual VTUK Roundtable Luncheons.

The roundtable has previously been attended by respected industries figures such as Bill McClintock, Lord Best, Ian Potter and also Grant Shapps to name a few and yesterday we were very pleased to welcome back the Past President of the NAEA as well as welcoming the current President, Simon Gerrard for the first time.

The aim of the discussion was to bring together the most innovative and influential minds in the industry to discuss one of the most pressing challenges being faced in today's market.

Previously we have created real momentum with topics such as "How should the industry be regulated" and "How are technology systems evolving within agency".

In our last debate we discussed How the demand for 24/7 data is affecting the industry." This evolved to highlight that traditional methods of communications such as visiting the office, telephone calls and wordy emails were regarded as slow, onerous and time consuming and that the advances in other industries, whether medical, legal or even banking are engendering a culture of online, log in, SMS, Scanning, Portal and immediate interaction.

This naturally led onto yesterday's debate: Online Vs Traditional Agency.

We hoped the outcome of the debate would be a shared vision for both online and traditional agents.

What became apparent was that despite strong online reviews (to be expected from clients naturally choosing an online service, but not guaranteed to be positive) the service levels achieved by online agency cannot match those of the traditional High Street agent.

This was particularly in respect of:

1. Up-selling a property, from a poor viewing, i.e. suggesting a different more suitable property.

2. The valuation of the property, as indicated by Jamie Lester, showing potentially dramatically under sold houses in his "patch" via online agencies.

3. The more complex sale if which examples were given by both the President and Past Presidents of the NAEA

4. All agreed that operating in a multi-disciplined way was crucial but that online models suffer in the whole sphere of Lettings and Management.

However the High Street agents did not shy away from progress and acknowledged the superiority of online in Client communications, an issue we confirmed could be simply overcome for the High St, via the VTUK portal. (https://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=GJ8YQxf7X14 )

The crux of the difference then gelled into 2 central points Service' and Cost'.

Interestingly the online model agents seemed to say, that as they had been paid up-front, they would work harder to get the sale, but this didn't quite ring true for me - don't pay the ferry man and all that!

I had entered the debate wondering if there may be a seed change approaching but left feeling that in fact there are simply 2 models.

Similar to Easy Jet & First Class with BA, both flights are likely to get you to your destination and if it's a smile trip with no frills or assistance required, then Easy Jet is the best option, but on 90% of occasions you would want the assurance of the quality, comfort and service delivery of BA. Meaning when it comes to a house sale it seems the local knowledge may save you thousands in sterling rather than actually a few hundred in the initial outlay.

But High Street must evolve their client communications and embrace the technology available for this to match the service delivery of on-line.

In summary I am satisfied that with our technology (Taurus and Scorpio) a High Street agent can offer all that an online agent can, but that online will never have the same depth of knowledge and "local agent" presence of the High St. But for a simple transaction online is a viable alternative - even if the sector did allude to a soon to be announced price rise.