Don't leave clients 'home alone' when it comes to conveyancing

Advisers who don’t offer this service appear to be something akin to Macaulay Culkin’s family in the film Home Alone who leave their son on his own over Christmas to fend for themselves while they jet off.

Unfortunately, I guarantee that a number of clients will not be as resourceful as little Kevin McCallister and instead could find themselves in rather deep trouble.

Now, the retort to this might be along the lines that, most clients will be able to muddle through when it comes to sourcing their conveyancer. Firstly, would you just want your clients to muddle through especially when you could offer that service yourself, keep control of the transaction, and secure income from it? And secondly, just how easy is it for them to secure a conveyancer without any professional help?

You might think it would be easy but some recent research from TM Group suggests that even getting to the price quote stage is not a foregone conclusion in this marketplace. In a mystery shopping exercise, conveyancing firms were phoned up directly and asked to provide a quote for a property purchase of £280k outside, and £520k, in London. What could be simpler than that you might think? No doubt 100 firms were able to do just that?

I’m afraid you’d be sadly mistaken, and the following results should worry those advisers who are letting their client walk out the door to source their own conveyancer. Of the 100 firms, 60% refused to give a quote over the phone and even if they did, the majority made no follow-up with the prospective client. In this day and age, that seems staggering.

Delving deeper into the results we know that:

- 31 refused to give a quote over the phone and then did not follow up.
- 24 firms did give a quote, but still did not follow up.
- 29 would not give a quote, but did actually get back in contact with the client.
- Only 16 firms provided both a quote and then followed it up with the client.

Of all those contacted, a measly seven attempted to close the deal with the client on the phone, there and then, after providing a quote. One wonders what policies are being followed at these firms especially when you add in the poor information that is available to prospective clients from them. Again, the same study revealed that 24% of those firms didn’t even have their phone number on their website, while 42% of sites were judged not to be mobile-friendly.

This certainly appears one in the eye for those advisers who may not be advising on conveyancing but feel their clients should have no problem sorting it out themselves. When you can’t even get a price quote from a firm, and there are no contact details, plus the firm themselves doesn’t get back in contact with you to provide a quote (let alone service) you are not doing the equivalent of shooting conveyancing fish in the barrel. It actually becomes a stressful situation for the client and ultimately is likely to result in a considerable amount of delay for everyone in the process.

Advisers therefore continue to have a major opportunity to make everyone’s lives less stressful here, and to take their clients through conveyancing in a much quicker timeframe. It’s a simple case of using a distributor like us, sourcing a quote, outlining the costs of that conveyancer’s service to the client – and the survey also revealed that cost is not a massive concern to clients as long as things get done quickly and efficiently – and placing the case with a firm that wants the work and can deliver on it.

There is surely no benefit to anyone in leaving the client alone and without a home for any longer than is necessary.