Media Coverage: Orchestrating The Moves

The Negotiator, 04/04/2008

Orchestrating the moves

Former musician Rosie Rogers founded a company to help people move home after her own experience pinpointed the business opportunity.

She talks to Rosalind Renshaw:

ReallyMoving is a website that launched far ahead of its time. Today, comparison websites (as consumers would know them) or online lead-generated technology (as business understands them) is the norm, but back in 1999, they were unheard of.

The website launched via a give-away mousemat on the front cover of The Negotiator: something we have never done before, and which threw our printers and distributors into all kinds of nervous discussions.

So, how has it been doing since? Brilliantly, it would seem, generating £72 million last year for the moving-related businesses that subscribe to it.

Rosie Rogers, previously a professional cellist, has never needed any convincing about the business that she founded with her husband and co-director Rob Houghton. “We’d just moved house and it was a life-changing event” she says. The site was born with the idea of giving consumers the kind of information about moving house which they would have found useful. It has evolved over the years and today has arrived at what Rogers calls a very simple business model.

Business Leads

Essentially, removals firms, solicitors, surveyors, HIP providers and Energy Performance Certificate suppliers all subscribe to the site, paying per lead. A consumer enters the site and asks for quotes on any or all of the above services. Within seconds, quotes are flashed up online and emailed to the consumer.

The consumer will receive five quotes from removal companies and four quotes from the rest, chosen from a total of 150 firms in total subscribing to the site. These include 80 surveying firms, 50 conveyancers and just 12 HIP providers-HIPs and EPCs being the latest services on offer.

The firms are a deliberate mixture of national and local. “In some areas, we have a waiting list of companies waiting to come on to our site,” says Rogers. The exceptions are the HIPs firms, all of which operate nationally she says.

Free to consumers

The site is free to consumers to use. “We are now generating 12,000 registrations per month” says Rogers. “We are growing and growing. We had thought 2008 would be a tricky year, but this is not proving to be the case.” In fact, she believes it could turn out to be a strong year, regardless of the slump in transactions: organisations will increasingly rely on internet lead-generation as a cost effective method of marketing.

Among the enthusiast are Norwich solicitors Lambert Pugh, who joined Really Moving shortly after they opening in 2005. Today, they reckon their business has grown on the back of ReallyMoving, and would only be a quarter of the size it is now without the relationship. Partner John Pugh says:” With minimal expenditure, we have really reaped the benefits.”

Pricing Matrix

The only firms and individuals not currently being charged are the Domestic Energy Assessors-mainly because their earnings have been so poor to date that they haven’t funds available from tight margins. Of the HIP providers, the main proviso is that they all adhere to the voluntary HIP code.

How can comparative quotes be supplied so quickly? “Each firm gives a pricing matrix and our technology takes over from there” says Rogers.

There is no facility for consumers to accept a quote online, but the instant quote gives them full contact details plus a small amount of information about each of the firms, and the firms themselves are alerted in the inquiry.

Rogers points out that the Really Moving clients who do the best are the ones who “pounce on every lead”. Yet many fail to do this and miss out on converting valuable deals, she says.

I tried out the service-the website is in fact in the throes of being rebuilt-and it delivered exactly as Rogers said, with two firms quickly following up leads-even on the evening of Easter Saturday. One of the two firms followed up with a phone call, and a third firm made contact by email a few days later. I am still waiting for the forth firm to make contact.

I requested HIP quotes for a four-bedroom house in a GU51 postcode (GU51 is a large new development in fleet, Hampshire). The amount of information requested online was astonishingly little: essentially, postcode, number of bedrooms, roughly when built, and anticipated asking price. No registration is require and was all very painless. Within a few seconds, four quotes were in front of me, ranging from £249 to £295.

The two who emailed me straight away certainly proved the strength of their own willingness to ‘pounce’ on every lead. The first was from Peter Now, of JP Home Inspections, explaining the contents of a HIP and pointing out that optional Home Use and Home Content forms could be added at no extra cost.

Sales message

The second was from Jenny Wood, a WTG associates, whose sales message was: “It is also worth remembering that if you have your Home Information pack before you visit your estate agent or solicitor, you may be able to negotiate on fees as your property can be marketed immediately. “WTG alone followed up with a phone call.

A few days later, I was also emailed by My Home Pack. Hip Hip Hooray did not follow up at all. But, as I say, it was the Saturday evening on a bank holiday weekend when I made the request.

ReallyMoving, based in St Albans, now employs five people in the office and outsources its web design. But how do people get to hear of it in the first place? “We do a lot of internet marketing” says Rogers. She insists that really moving has a unique offering, and it appears to be just that, in offering instant quotes across so many services.

The site does not, however, offer a change of address service, as iammoving.com does: in fact, says Rogers, ReallyMoving used to host iammoving.com on its website, but no longer.

The strength of iammoving.com is that it allows home movers to notify their change of address to absolutely everyone they need to, prompted by a checklist, all in one hit.

ReallyMoving also has some competitors nudging into its space: Move Me also offers instant quotes, but concentrates on utilities, removals, conveyacing and notifying local authorities of changes of address.

Then there is helpiammoving.com, a BBC2 radio website of the day, which sticks to removals. None of the sites appear to work directly with estate agents (unless they have surveying arms or, in the case of ReallyMoving, other services) or give them the facility to access what could be very strong leads-people who are so seriously considering buying or selling a house that they are investigating costs and suppliers. However, for these property internet sites, wooing agents could be a move in the right direction.