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If you have a technical issue, you can now log it directly from within VIA to help us diagnose & fix your issue faster.

From 15th July, our new Training & Support Centre will be available to all customers. You'll be able to Log a Support Case directly from VIA, enabling us to capture key information about your account, your device, and your operating system at source. This will help us diagnose & fix your issue faster. Plus, it will avoid us having to contact you to get further information which slows down the process and burdens you with extra correspondence.

We're asking all of our customers to log any technical issues directly within VIA rather than emailing or calling the helpdesk from now on. This will ensure you get a faster response, and enable us to capture all the information we need. To log a support case

• Login to VIA
• From your dashboard, simply click the blue "Log a Support Case" button on the Training & Support Centre tile
• From the menu, you can also go to Help & About> Training & Support Centre

As well as being able to log a case, you'll also have access to our training centre, with a host of how to instructional videos & articles to help you with all aspects of your VIA software
.

You can now add multiple videos and virtual tours to a property.

If you use VIA to enter your property information directly:

• Login to VIA
• Go to the CRM or Property Editor tab
• Find the Property you want to add your video/virtual tour to and right click and select edit, or double click the property itself
• Go to the Marketing Options section
• Enter the URL of the video or virtual tour into the Video Tour field 
• To add multiple tours, simply click the + Add Video Tour button
• Once complete, select Save and Close

All videos/virtual tours will be displayed on your website as well as being sent to the property portals.

To find out more information, visit the Training Centre in VIA (Help & About > Training Centre) and search for "video tours"

If you use a third-party software to export your property data to us; multiple video tours will display on your website if they are sent to us in the correct format by your provider. However, they will need to facilitate the export to the property portals for you.

We've released new features and functionality into our VIA software. As ever, all of these updates are completely free of charge, and have been automatically rolled out onto the system and available to everyone as soon as they logon.

Tools for remote and home working

• All users can set a status so all your colleagues know what you’re up to (eg: “working from home” or “on holiday”)
• See all of your colleague’s statuses at a glance, and whether their logged into to the system right now.
• You can also upload a personalised profile picture.

Book a viewing or a valuation in a click

• You can now book a valuation or viewing appointment into your calendar directly from the property or contact record, without having to go into the calendar itself.
• Right click any property or contact direct from the search or add an appointment directly from the record itself.
• Adding an appointment not only tracks all the activity against your properties and contacts, but sends a confirmation email to all attendees to accept or reject the appointment.

Training Centre Update

• Visit our redesigned training centre to see instructional how to videos and articles as well as hints and tips to help you improve things such as your SEO
• The training centre is now found under the “Help & About” menu tab

Recently Edited Tile

• The recently edited tile now shows your recently edited pages and blogs, as well as your properties and contacts, so you can revisit anything your working on quickly and easily

Miscellaneous Changes

• SMS moved from the dashboard to the office tab
• New third Party tile on dashboard with downloadable files for LettsPay integrations
• Font size and style standardised across all tabs of VIA
• Design changes to the Google Authentication, property and contact fields
• Update to the latest security libraries for login and JWT authentication
• New properties an contacts can have notes added when you first add the record to the system
• About Menu changed to “Help & About”

Fixes

• Upgraded to font awesome 5.13.0
• MailMerge - VIA Default MailMerge Templates contain new templates
• Update to the News Tile
• Email tracking
• Saving a user profile now remembers the linked contact
• Fixed padding in associated property view on contact popover

The government’s decision to begin unfreezing the property market on Tuesday evening (12th May) brought a collective sigh of relief for all those in the industry.

Whilst online activity has been high, income has largely been frozen for most agents, particularly those in sales. The changes in the government advice means that online activity can now be converted into income, as the pent-up frustrations of house hunters confined to months of lock down have suddenly been released into the property market.

The post lockdown boom which we wrote about a month or so ago is coming into fruition. Those agents who have used their lockdown time wisely should be well placed to take advantage. However, there is still a challenge facing agents, and they don’t just centre around understanding and implementing the logistical challenges of social distancing and hygiene.

The biggest challenge to agents will be to combat the collective fear of the public. At the beginning of May, a number of surveys suggested that the vast majority of people weren’t in favour of coming out of lockdown. With the “stay home” message seriously hitting home for most, this feeling is of fear is unlikely to simply disappear because of a Government announcement.

Whilst officially the public might be able to attend house viewings or have a valuation of their property, the initial burst of excitement to get your property hunt back up and running might be tempered with the realisation that you still can’t visit your parents or allow the grandparents to hug your kids.

Getting the public’s head around the notion that a potential property you want to buy is perfectly safe to visit, but your parent’s house is not, is going to take some clever negotiating. Luckily, that negotiation is all part and parcel of a successful agency, but agents will need to move quickly to reassure the public and put in place the measures needed to adapt to the new normal.

Trust and communication will be key, and just as your website helped you take advantage of lockdown activity, so it will play a key part in advertising your new processes and procedures.

On the evening of the announcement, Webdadi saw a 50% spike in property viewings across its entire platform. This provides a clear indication that the general public is ready to move. However, the announcement was simply the beginning; converting that enthusiasm into offers, deals and completions is going to be the biggest challenge of a longer road ahead.

Join Elliott for our weekly online webinars where we’ll be discussing these issues and more. Register here 

Since lock down was first announced back on Monday 23rd March, we’ve been working hard to provide you with the tools you need to work from home and enable you to keep communicating with your customers.

Your website and VIA software have never been more important. Along with our weekly webinars with hints, tips, advise and guest speakers, our team has been working tirelessly to give you as much support as we can.

We've provided a list of the new technical developments that we've developed and released across the platform, just in case you missed them. If you don’t have access to any of the features, then speak to us. We’re still giving free trials to our Lead Management and CRM software to help our agents access all the tools they need.


Website Updates

Virtual Viewings

• Any visitor to your website can request a virtual viewing of any property
• An email alert will be sent informing you of the request
• If you have Lead Manager or CRM software, the contact record will also be automatically added to your software with the relevant applicant profile information, including a history of all properties they’ve submitted an enquiry for to help profile your applicant

This was rolled out across all website templates (Zephyr, Quantum, Cascade, Zephyr Plus, Quantum Plus, Kinesis, and Atom)


Software Updates (All Editions)

Training Centre
The new “Training” tab in VIA is packed full of how to videos and articles.  We’ve added all of our Webinar replays, including our guest webinars with SEO and Google Analytics advise from Nick Trueman of Spec Digital who’s worked with the like of TK Maxx, Mamas & Papas and Deloitte. If you missed any of these, catch up with them now.

Recently Edited
We’ve expanded the recently edited tile on your dashboard to show your recently edited web pages and blogs, alongside your recently edited contact and property records

Blog changes

• Preview your blog article in a click
• Add window titles and meta descriptions to individual articles to help boost your SEO

Software Updates (Lead Manager & CRM Only)

Newsletters

• Create and send email newsletters to any of your contacts

Property Alerts

• Customise the subject line of the property alert emails you trigger from VIA
• Anyone can reply directly from the email property alert directly to the agent’s email address that sent it

Engagement Tracking

• The reports > website tab now includes a tile where you can see how many newsletters, auto emails and property alerts you’ve sent over a chosen period
• View the amount you’ve sent, the amount that have been read, and get an accurate picture of your engagement statistics

New MailMerge Templates

• The Mailmerge feature lets you create your own letter templates that can be used to create letters in a click from any property. We’ve created some default templates to help you get started
  • Valuation letter (sales and lettings)
  • Valuation follow up (sales and lettings)
  • Offer Submission letter (sales and lettings)
  • Offer Rejected Letter (sales and lettings)
  • Offer Accepted Letter

Property Feed
All of your staff can see any updates to your properties including price changes, status changes, or new offer. All of your staff can be kept abreast of property developments easily whilst working remotely, and trigger the appropriate actions, such as sending property alerts for any recent price changes to applicants.

LettsPay Integration
We’ve partnered with our friends at LettsPay to help automate rental payments, landlord transfers and debt collection.
Remote Vendor Uploading

• Trigger an email from any property record direct to the vendor requesting more media for the property
• Within the email, the vendor or landlord clicks a link which takes them to a page of your website allowing them upload JPEGS, GIF and PDF files
• The files they upload will automatically be added to the property record
• You can simply view and make the media available on your website once you’re happy 

This feature is only available to those on the Atom website platform


*Coming Soon*

User status and colleague tracking
Knowing where your colleagues are is now more important than ever.  Set your current status to keep your colleagues in the loop, and see where they are at a glance. Optimised for a mobile, set your status on the go and view where your colleagues are on the move.

This feature will be available for ALL Software Editions

In this week’s webinar, we discussed how to best utilise your blog during the government lock down.

As estate agents, you have a unique local knowledge. You know your areas and communities better than any business, so it’s a unprecedented opportunity for you to share that knowledge through your blog and make your website a hub of locally important information for your community.

There is a real lack of locally specific knowledge on the internet at the moment. Most information comes from street Whatsapp groups and local conversations. However, you can make your website a hub of information for your community and make your website the destination for people seeking out this knowledge. Not to mention boosting your brand awareness and connecting with your community in a way that will benefit your business going forward.

You can hear more of my thoughts on the subject by watching our webinar replay here.

However, many of you have been in touch to ask what sort of blogs you should be writing. So below is a list of ideas from us here at Webdadi to help you:

1. A list of all local supermarkets with:

• General opening times
• Opening times for the elderly, vulnerable and key workers
• Peak times – are you able to comment on when the queues to gain entry are at their least?
• What are the current waiting times for online delivery from these supermarkets?

2. Local restaurants, pubs, stores and food deliveries

• A list of what stores are offering takeaway services and at what times
• Are grocery stores open and are they offering home delivery? 
• If so, what are the current lead times for delivery?

3. Activities for children
A list of what virtual activities are available for children of different ages. Don’t just limit it to celebrity Instagram live sessions such as Joe Wick’s 9am PE sessions (although this is a great one to recommend) but see if you can connect with local businesses offering their services online.
What better way to connect with the wider business community to cross promote their services? You could also strike up a mutual promotional agreement. Now more than ever, it’s important to help your local community so find those smaller independent businesses operating in your local area.


4. Food bank information
Lot’s of foodbanks are currently struggling with a lack of stock. Why not find your local foodbank(s) and let your audience know how they can both donate, and how they can access those services if they need them.


5. Guest Bloggers
With VIA, you can add a user to your software that can only access your blog. It means you could invite local people or businesses to write a guest blog on your website. You can simply add them as a user to the system to post a blog directly on your website.


6. Local park information & fitness tips
What parks are open and what are the busiest times for those that are.
You could even comment on the best local spots for exercise and suggest the best running routes


7. Support your local hospital & charities
Have you considered setting up a fundraising campaign for your local NHS hospital or perhaps key local charities that are struggling to fund raise?
You can setup a campaign easily on website such as https://www.justgiving.com or https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/giving/ or https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/ 


I'd love to hear your feedback on our online webinars and the blog articles we're posting. If you feel there's any other topics you'd like to learn about, send your feedback to helpdesk@webdadi.com 

Take care and stay safe everyone.

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the rules of the game for estate agency. The ensuing government lock down has meant that the vital blood line of of live valuations and viewings simply isn’t possible.

Combine that with the government advice and the general public consensus that is shying away from house completion, and it would seem to paint a grim picture for the property market.

But are there reasons to be cheerful? There are if you can react to the situation that we now find ourselves in.

There’s no doubt that one needs to look at one’s business to carefully manage cash flow through this, as yet unknown period of lock down. However, estate agents who are choosing to simply mothball their business and hibernate in the hope of making it through this period of uncertainty are missing a key element, and I would urge agents to think carefully about which elements of their business they choose to sacrifice before making a decision.

An estate agency is more than just it’s employees and the office they inhabit. It’s more than sign boards and customised car stickers. Your agency is a brand, a connection to the local community, an identity that has been built through years of hard work and endeavour.

So how does one maintain that connection without people on the ground or an open, active office? Well, there is one place where we are not confined, where social distancing doesn’t impact our behaviour or the interactions we’re allowed to make with others; the internet.

Your brand must still exist in this digital world. Your website is now more important than ever. Your website was always capable of delivering a message to thousands and reaching people in a way your physical branch never could, but now it is your only real method of communication.

The post lock down boom will see pent up frustrations in the property market released in a frenzy of activity. Weeks and months of social isolation will drive a need for a change of scenery. Vendor’s who were on the fence might find themselves accelerating their plans for the sale of their property, and currently for sale properties will be prime for completion by hordes of hungry house hunters.

But whether you are in a position to take advantage will depend on how your business reacts during the lock down lull. How will these potential vendors find the agent that will drive their sale in the future? How will the applicants looking to purchase know where to look to line up their perfect property? It’ll be through your website, through your continued digital exposure. By showing your audience that you’re still open for business, even if business isn’t quite the same as usual. It will be achieved by showing them that just because you’re working from home, you’re not remote.

Agents that hide away won’t be found. Agents who think their agency is no more than the people they employ and the office they inhabit, won’t be remembered by their community. Make no mistake that businesses will be judged on their reaction to this pandemic and who was able to see it through the tough times.

If you divert attention into one key piece of your brand then let the website be it. There is activity out there to harvest, but you must put yourself in a position to be able to reap it.

Can’t carry out valuations? Enable your potential vendors and landlords to submit their property media and key information online for you to appraise their home. What better way to prove to your potential client that you’ll do anything to get the job done.

Unable to carry out valuations? Let your property hunters know they can simply book a virtual viewing through your website. How better to show them that you’re working in their in their interest no matter what.

Want to know make sure you can still harvest activity in the market despite the lack of completion? Make sure your website lets people know it’s an option in this period of confusion. What better way to show certainty in a confusing market.

If you’re key to your local community, then show it by sharing the information that’s vital to your audience. Share on your blog the local initiatives and community spirit that have blossomed during this crisis. Become the hub of information that your audience is seeking.

If you’re still on the fence about whether you should start embracing your website, then I’ll share the following with you.

On the day the lock down was announced, we saw a 16% increase in property views across our entire website platform.

In the week since the lock down was announced, we’ve seen a 21% increase.

Despite the lock down, we’ve seen a 24% increase in the number of property views online compared to the same time last year.

If you think the British public has fallen out of love with property, you’re very much mistaken. If Homes Under The Hammer and Location, Location, Location have taught us anything, it’s that this love affair will continue through thick and thin. Whether your audience continues their love affair with your brand is up to you.

As one of the country’s leading interior designers, Gabrielle needed a website that was as beautifully designed as the interiors she creates.

Like interior design itself, function was just as important as form. The user journey and functionality of the website was just as important as showing off her extensive portfolio of work.

The issue, as with so many businesses, was finding the time to dedicate to a website project and avoiding it becoming a time consuming and difficult process. Luckily, Webdadi was on hand to answer Gabrielle’s SOS call.

Despite Gabrielle’s incredible talent at design, this didn’t need to be a DIY job. Webdadi’s talented team were on hand to deliver a painless & fast website build. Taking the time to understand her market, they recreated a digital representation capable of standing next to any of her creations. In this case, the frame is just as pretty as the pictures within.

Webdadi’s aim was to take the hassle out of the website build, giving Gabrielle the freedom to fulfil her incredibly busy schedule, whilst offering enough support to still feel connected to the build. A digital partner to take care of the technical aspects, and offer clear choices in a simple, no-nonsense way, free from technical jargon and confusion.

VISIT WEBSITE

We are doing everything we can to help our customers during this time. We realise the government lock down has fundamentally changed how agents are able to do their job. That's why we've released these key features on our customers websites and their VIA software today to help with remote working and offer an alternative way of carrying viewings and valuations.

Just because you're working from home, doesn't mean you need to be remote from your customers.


Virtual Viewings
Applicants can now request virtual viewings through your website.

When filling in an arrange a viewing request, they can specify that they’d like a virtual viewing. They can also request additional media or information about the property in-light of not being able to physically visit.

Look out for these requests when they appear in your email inbox.

How does it work?
Any applicant can request a virtual viewing by simply clicking the option on the arrange a viewing form of your website. The agency will immediately receive an email alerting you to the request.

In addition, the request will be saved against the contact record in your VIA software. Every viewing request they make will be tracked, including whether it's a virtual or live viewing request, the address of the property, plus any additional information they request, building up a complete profile of every applicant on your website.


Remote Valuations & Remote Media Uploading
Any potential Vendor or Landlord can now upload their own media direct to your properties, meaning you can collect all the information you need to carry out a valuation or add additional media to a property already being marketed.

Without the ability to visit people’s homes, market appraisals won’t be able to be carried out live, nor will gaining additional marketing material. However, our tool will enable you to request certain images and documents in JPG, GIF, PDF or *coming soon* video file formats to help you carry out a remote valuation or allow vendors and landlords to upload media directly to your website for you to approve and put live.

You can put these images live on the website in a click once you’ve secured the instruction

How does it work?
Simply right click any property record within your VIA software. The vendor or landlord registered to the property will be sent an instant email.

From the email, the vendor/landlord simply clicks the upload link which can be accessed from any device, including mobile, to quickly add their photos and videos.

Once complete, the media is immediately available in the property record in your VIA software. You can download the images in a click, or publish them to your website and portals straight away. You can even keep them hidden if you wish, the choice is yours.


If you don't have access to any of these features, speak to your Account Manager or contact the helpdesk on helpdesk@webdadi.com . We will unlock these features free of charge for at least 3 months, with the option to extend if necessary. We'll also be showing you how best to utilise these new features in Tuesday's live webinar. You can register here

We’d like to take this opportunity to reassure all of our customers during this uncertain time.

Webdadi will continue to operate as normal. Our staff are all able to work from home without any disruption to our services, so you can continue to call or email any department between 09:00 – 18:00.



In these sessions we will:

• Give you hints & tips to help you communicate with your customers online
• Show you how to add additional tools such as virtual viewings and online web chats to your website
• Running Q & A sessions for you to ask any questions about your website
• Show you what tools are available within VIA for your staff
• How you can monitor and drive performance through VIA
• How you can utilise VIA to communicate with your customers
• Running Q & A sessions so you can ask us any questions about your CRM/Property Management software

All these live sessions will be available as a video on our YouTube & Vimeo channels straight after each event so they can be viewed and circulated to your staff whenever you need them.