It was a double celebration at the 2023 ESTAS Awards three weeks ago, as this year we marked our twentieth birthday and the hailed the best of the best from the property industry.
Although it’s been a somewhat challenging twelve months, the cream really has risen to the top and over the last year the bar for excellent customer service has been raised still further, meaning that each and every one of our Grand Prix winners richly deserve their titles given the stiff competition. ESTAS isn’t just for the estate and letting agents of the UK, we also shine a light on the conveyancing and mortgage broker sectors. Phil Spencer, who has hosted The ESTAS since 2004 said:
“Conveyancers are probably the most important piece in the property transaction jigsaw, without them those pipelines aren’t going anywhere! So its time to salute those conveyancers who really are delivering the service clients deserve!”
So we wanted to understand what winning means to the companies that put in the hard yards and late nights to walk away with their trophies, so we asked some of our Grand Prix winners from the Conveyancing categories to share their thoughts with us…
AV Rillo Conveyancing won the Best National Conveyancer in the UK award, the latest accolade to join the silverware in their ever-expanding trophy cabinet. Tony Piccirillo, Co-Founder and Partner explained what winning this year meant to him and his colleagues saying:
“It’s been a tough year for most professionals in property industry and also for many home movers; with average completion times sitting at approximately five months and average fall through rates sitting at well over 30 percent, cashflow for agents, conveyancers and mortgage brokers is tighter than ever which means winning every new case counts. This year, our ESTAS awards were even more important than ever because of the prestige they add to our brand when compared with our competitors, due to the fact that the ESTAS is widely respected and recognised by consumers.”
‘The ESTAS awards are special because they are entirely based on consumer feedback’
Tony continued:
“For us, everything is about engineering marginal gains, as you never really know why you don’t win a client or an agent referral, but having our ESTAS awards to our name really does make the difference. In an environment where every advantage counts, being able to demonstrate consistent levels of excellence is a huge benefit for us and that’s what winning the Best National Conveyancer award this year really communicates. It demonstrates that we actually care about both our clients and our agent partners. One of our internal standards is to be ‘world class’ however it’s difficult to benchmark this ourselves. The ESTAS awards are special because they are entirely based on consumer feedback, which provides us with the most important benchmarking process of all.”
Tony concluded:
“Winning this award means that our staff feel ‘seen’ for all their hard work over the past year, which then encourages them to continue with their efforts. Winning awards at The ESTAS is great to retain and recruit good people, because they illustrate to any potential new recruits that when they join us, their work is valued both internally and externally. I’m so proud of all of them for contributing towards our success.”
Thomas Legal, the Gloucester based property lawyers walked away with the Grand Prix Best Conveyancer Office in the UK. We caught up with Chris Barry, Business Development Director, Chris told us:
“The ESTAS is the only review platform we use for two main reasons; firstly, it’s consumer friendly, easy to use and provides us with the opportunity to garner honest feedback from our clients. We send it out following our ‘congratulations’ call when clients have completed and find that a high number of them respond and provide their reviews. Secondly, the fact that the client can easily convert their feedback into a Google review is a huge advantage for us, as it really helps our SEO which in turn, increases online awareness and generates new enquiries.”
‘ESTAS is now such a recognised brand, it’s a mark of excellence when other property professionals are conducting their due diligence on us’
Chris continued:
“Although there are lots of industry awards in the legal sector and equally, lots of customer review platforms, the ESTAS Awards are the only accolades that are entirely based on customer reviews; effectively, you live or die by the number of clients who provide us with their feedback and how they feel about the service they’ve received. These insights are so valuable, as they help us with the day-to-day management of our business, while the ESTAS brand enhances our marketing. We also find that, with approximately half of our business referred to us by our agent and mortgage broker partners, as the ESTAS is now such a recognised brand, it’s a mark of excellence when other property professionals are conducting their due diligence on us. That’s why, to say that we’re over the moon with our win this year would be an understatement.”
We’d like to say a huge congratulations again to every one of our winners and shortlisted firms…and as we always say, ‘if you want to win it you’ve got to be in it’ so with the countdown to the ESTAS 2024 now on, every review counts, so if you want to be lifting the silverware on stage next year, you know what you need to do, and we’ll see you in London in twelve months’ time!
You can see the full winners list here https://www.theestas.com/estas23-official-winners. To find out how your can benefit from using ESTAS click here https://www.theestas.com/join-estas
This article was submitted to be published by The ESTAS as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer
