Estate Agent vs ICT

Q.
The services of estate agents are nowadays becoming more challenging in the presence of Internet and other information technology facilities. Discuss.

(20 marks, 2013 Q8 Estate Agency Practice)

A.
Refer my earlier write up on Estate Agent vs E-commerce.

It is a really big challenge for traditional business models, irrespective of whether you are in service industry like tourism, finance or banking, or in car or handphone or computer industry where portals like www.mudah.my is taking them by storm. Similar portals for properties like iProperty or PropertyGuru are emerging to replace human-human interaction. Soon, the selling process would be taken over by computer and smart phones in the era of broadband Internet.

E-commerce really takes on toll in eliminating the inefficiency and redundancy of human beings and pushes forward in reducing long term cost in conducting business. Employees are laid off in achieving a better financial report year end, despite unsatisfying customer calling the call centers with complaints due to irritating or unfriendly website interface that greets the consumers in the cyberspace. Afterall, your response time is still limited by the human being behind the screen and not the immediately generated auto-reply by the computer.

To prove my point, imagine calling a customer support number and being greeted by an answering machine asking you to select No 1 for A, No 2 for B... and when you reach the end, your query is not listed in the list!

Nonetheless, an electronic evolution is surely underway, and there are many reasons that such evolution and advancement is inevitable in our daily lives. Look at the fax machine, it is now slowly replaced by email. Look at the bulky typewriter, they are no more around!

This is technology. No more raws of cashiers at the counter of any bank. Only ATM machines. Banks opens 24/7 and 365 days a year on the cyberspace. Money transaction is done now without time limit or barrier of geographical region. These are all because of ICT - Information Communication Technologies and Internet.

Can an estate agent work 24/7 and 365 days a year? Sure cannot! Conversely, how much am I paid if I work like that?

Whatever said, human beings still carry on the business activities like before. Only different now is speed, at what time and whereabout.

There was a worry by the airline industries that with the advent of telephone, they would go out of business. Nobody needed to meet face to face anymore. Everything could be discussed over the phone. However, the reverse was true. More people get on board a plane to meet for businesses. The same is likely true about Internet and Estate Agent.

What is different and require emphasis is that an estate agent is a person - a human being. Human beings are creatures with brains and emotion. An Internet connection or gatget like computer or smartphone is a non-living tool. It cannot 'think' and does not have 'emotion'.

The mere reason you do not like the answering machine is the feeling of being 'rejected' for 'not important'. And, unless you can wait and prove your worth, nobody is going to take you seriously. Or else, someone would straight away jumped to your service. In this context, it is the cost of employing and training that someone that is keeping you from the immediate response you deserve with your issue. Hence, ICT evolution comes to solving this cost issue, by helping you to select the key finder and search for your solution.

What many had bought into the ICT evolution by Internet e-commerce is convenience. It has to be acknowledged that the greatest change in mankind Internet has made is human interaction beyond limitation of space and time. Space is signified by the end of one to one communication enclosed in one location. And time is no more an essence as you can record and replay the same whenever and where ever convenient to your recipient.

To further illustrate the power of Internet, space is no more limited by physical presence of crowd to hear your selling messages like in a congregation. You can transmit your message to hundreds and thousands of people by mere split second using Facebook or Twitter. Even a group chat by WhatsApp is more than a hand full of people, at anytime any place at one instance!

Another phenomenon of Internet is the power of keeping massive amount of information. This is truly amazing in the process of selling. For example, selecting to search a product would immediately produce tens to hundreds of responses with similar products. The data and recordings in the Internet is unprecedented in human history. This is a gigantic repository of information no single estate agent can master, not even a firm of agents.

With such powerful tool, a seller and a buyer would be matched pretty fast and pretty easily. Thus it is this matching that has become possible because of Internet, not that the information has changed or the seller and buyers have emerged out of sudden.

There is already supply and demand for a certain product, be it property or a car, and Internet acts a a good matchmaker. So, the big question is "Is an estate agent a better matchmaker?"

This is a hard question, and it is also a difficult answer. Why? Because different seller and buyer requires different services, especially if they have different products as human being are basically different and heterogenous in physical form as well as needs and wants. Their desires can be different even on the same product.

Therefore, an estate agent can use the Internet tools to enhance the service of matchmaking, matching the property to the right and best buyer, for the best price and ultimate satisfaction of a lifetime.

If the product is simple and easy to identify, it is probably easier just using Internet as direct matchmaker. For instance, cars and hand phones. These are items of consistent built and specification. One proton saga or Vios of a certain year and make would be very much be the same compared to another of similar year and make.

However, property is different. There is no exact similar property even thought they may be of the same year of built, area, and architecture. Thus, information required to filter through is enormous. Furthermore, the elements of personal liking can be varied to the extend that one's liking may be another's dislike, e.g. color and Fung Shui.

Thus, a smart estate agent can make use of the Internet technology to enhance his value in sealing off a deal. What is different is that it is done in a more speedy manner and probably a lot more accurate in delivery of the value proposition.

Notwithstanding, there exists sellers who would take the long shot by doing all the research in the sea of data and approach the seller directly. In such way, it bypasses the need of an agent, especially when the seller is ignorant of the benefit of engaging an estate agent.

This may turn out to be a good thing after all as more informed public would realize that doing it direct seller-buyer would demand so much time and probably money, that it is not feasible to a normal man on the street.

So, why not entrust your estate agent to do it for you? After all, even if you can study to become a pilot, do you fly just to meet a client?

Something complicated require professionals to handle, we concentrate in our core competence. Leave those to the competence of others. The English saying: Jack of all trades, master of none! Do you wish to be a true master? Or masters of none?