Three months in, and the pilot just continues
You agreed a pilot with one branch of a regional agency. The branch manager was keen, the negotiators were trained, and the first fortnight looked promising. Then the branch manager went on holiday, a busy spell arrived, and use of your product became patchy. The directors, who will decide whether to roll it out across all branches, have not logged in once.
When you ask about next steps, the answer is that they need to see how it goes a bit longer. Nobody says no. Nobody says yes. Your pipeline shows a large deal that has been at the same stage for months, and you are carrying the cost of supporting a free branch.
Why estate agency pilots drift
Agencies are not being evasive. Pilots drift for reasons that are built into how they are set up.
- Success was described as seeing if it helps, which nobody can measure.
- The branch manager champions the pilot, but the directors who approve spend never see what happened.
- Usage depends on a few negotiators, and staff turnover in agency branches is common.
- The pilot has no end date, so there is never a moment to decide.
- Your product records activity, but nobody turns it into anything the agency can read.
The cost of an open-ended pilot
Pilots consume onboarding, training and support time, and they tie up sales attention on a deal that is not moving. They can also go wrong in a quieter way: a pilot that ended with nobody clear on the result tends to be remembered as it did not really work, even when the product was used well, and that story travels between agencies in the same area.
How we build pilots that reach a decision
What we build is a pilot structure inside your product, so the evidence gathers itself while the branch works.
- A pilot setup screen where your team and the agency agree the goals in measurable terms, such as the share of new instructions going through your tool, or the time from viewing to feedback, along with a start and end date.
- Event tracking tied to those goals, per branch and per negotiator, so you can see whether the product is being used in the way the pilot depends on.
- A baseline where the agency's data allows one, taken from their CRM history or the first weeks of the pilot, so there is something to compare against.
- Early warnings to your customer success person when usage drops, a negotiator stops logging in, or the champion leaves.
- A pilot report written in agency language, with the agreed goals, what happened and the gaps, that the branch manager can forward to directors without editing.
- A decision date built into the pilot, with the report sent ahead of it.
| Pilot element | Without structure | With structure |
|---|---|---|
| Success | See if it helps | Agreed measures, written down at the start |
| End | Open-ended | A decision date both sides know |
| Evidence | Anecdotes from the branch | Usage and outcomes per negotiator |
| Directors | Hear about it second hand | Receive a report they can read |
| Drop in use | Noticed at the end | Flagged while it can be fixed |
The report is honest by design. If the pilot did not meet its goals, the report says so, and it shows why. That is still more useful for your sales team than silence.
A pilot with a clear finish
Six weeks in, your customer success lead sees an alert: two of the four negotiators have not used the product for a week. A quick call shows one left the agency and the other was never shown the mobile app. Both gaps are fixed in days, not discovered at the end. On the decision date, the directors have the report in their inbox, with branch results against goals, and the conversation is about rollout terms instead of whether anyone remembers the pilot.
Is your pipeline full of pilots?
- Pilots have no written success measures or end date.
- Directors at the agency have never seen your product in use.
- You find out usage dropped only when you ask for a decision.
- Your team builds pilot summaries by hand from database queries.
- Several pilots have been running longer than they were meant to.