Friday afternoon and the vendor list
Every agent tells vendors they will hear from the office every week. In practice the weekly call is the first thing to go when the diary fills. Friday comes, there are forty instructions on the list, and the negotiators ring the ones who complain most. The quiet vendors hear nothing, and quiet vendors are the ones who switch agent when the sole agency period ends.
When the calls do happen, each one is a small research job. The negotiator looks up the viewings, tries to remember what each buyer said, checks the portal figures and then improvises a summary. It takes longer than it should and the vendor still asks for it in writing.
Why the updates slip
The facts for a vendor update are nearly all recorded somewhere already. Viewings are in the diary, feedback is in the CRM notes if someone typed it, portal views are on the Rightmove and Zoopla dashboards. What is missing is the step that pulls those facts together per property and turns them into something a vendor can read.
Because that step is manual, it competes with valuations and viewings for the same hours, and it always loses.
| Fact a vendor wants | Where it lives today |
|---|---|
| How many viewings, and when | CRM diary |
| What viewers thought | Negotiator notes, sometimes only memory |
| Interest online | Portal dashboards, separate logins |
| Offers and their status | CRM, plus emails |
| What the agent suggests next | The negotiator's head |
What silence costs you
A vendor who hears nothing assumes nothing is happening, even when it is. That feeling is what drives the call to another agent, the request to come off the market, or a harder conversation when you need to talk about price. It also produces inbound calls at the worst moments, which interrupt the negotiators who are trying to book viewings.
There is a record-keeping cost too. If a vendor later disputes what they were told about an offer or viewing interest, a trail of written updates is far easier to rely on than recollections of phone calls.
Vendor reports built from what you already record
- Data gathering per instruction: viewings, feedback notes, offers and status pulled from your CRM, plus enquiry and view figures from portal reports or exports where they are available to you.
- Draft report: a short plain-English update per vendor, generated on a set day, with the numbers stated as they are and feedback quoted from your notes rather than invented.
- Negotiator review: drafts land in a review screen. The negotiator adds a line of their own advice, edits anything, and approves. Nothing goes out unreviewed.
- Sending and logging: approved updates go by email or text and a copy is stored against the property in the CRM.
- Gaps flagged: properties with no viewings in the period, or viewings with no feedback recorded, are listed so someone chases them before the report goes.
The words about price, strategy and next steps stay with your negotiator. The system gathers facts and drafts; it does not advise vendors.
Fridays after the change
Friday becomes a review of drafts rather than forty phone calls. Every vendor hears from you on the same day each week, including the quiet ones. When a price conversation is needed, the history of viewings and feedback is already in writing, which makes it an easier conversation to have.
The negotiators still pick up the phone, but for the vendors where a call genuinely helps.
Do your vendors hear from you weekly?
- Weekly vendor calls are promised at valuation and rarely happen for every instruction.
- Vendors ring to ask what is happening more than you would like.
- Viewing feedback is recorded inconsistently, so updates rely on memory.
- You have lost instructions at the end of a sole agency period without warning.
- Portal figures are checked by logging into each site separately.