Thursday, December 14, 2006

Refreshing Approach to Selling Homes

Among a host of interviews and meetings today I spent an refreshing hour with Paul Crickett, the Operations Manager at Cricketts, an estate agency in Newbury.

As some may have seen in today's Newbury Property News, Cricketts is some four years old and has always enjoyed a good reputation in the town, not least due to the warmth and enthusiasm of its founder, Kath Crickett and no doubt the unique charms of my former Thames Valley Police colleague Bill Crickett. However, success had brought its own challenges and this is where Paul joined his parents.

With a background in recruitment (he found the UK managers for MSN Hotmail and Xbox) he fully understood the need for the business to become more corporate in order to better support its ever growing number of customers. However, he equally understood how to gently introduce the systems that would facilitate the friendly approach of the Cricketts team, without stifling them with a blanket of corporate nonsense.

Visitors to the town will have noticed the refurbishment to the bricks and mortar and online visitors will marvel at the clicks and mortar - Cricketts new website is the most intuitive and approachable website I have seen an estate agency offer.

With a new image, new branding, all new offices and the same great team, one suspects Cricketts are going to enjoy 2007!

You can probably tell this is one of those interviews that is a real joy to write up!

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