According to an article published by the UK’s Estate Agent Today, there has been “outrage and anger” expressed by agents who have discovered that their customers have been sent emails directly by Rightmove, advertising services which compete with what many agents already offer.
In extracts from the article, it said that in one email from Rightmove Partners, it promoted conveyancing from Countrywide, the UK’s biggest chain,states: “Buying or selling a property? Make sure that you have the right legal advice and instruct us now!”
A spokesman from the company was quoted in the article as saying, “Consumer feedback has shown that many home-movers visiting Rightmove would like help in finding, understanding and selecting products and services to help them move home.
“Better prepared movers are more likely to transact faster. We’ve therefore started a project to explore how we can meet the needs of our consumers for services like conveyancing, surveys and removals, whilst supporting our members’ interests to get the market moving.
“We are aware that many agents have existing partnerships and business lines in place which provide these services and Rightmove is exploring how these services could be incorporated to be of commercial benefit to our member agents.
“Rightmove already offer services which can generate additional revenue, such as our Premium Listing and Featured Property products, both of which carry a public-facing retail price and are being successfully sold on to consumers by many of our member agents.
“As we’re still at an early research stage in the project, we used a one-off email campaign offering a range of relevant services to home-movers to gather data about levels of consumer interest.
“We’re closely monitoring feedback we receive about the trial from both our consumers and member agents and will be incorporating that in our future plans.”
EAT in the article stated that the agents who are aware of the email campaign have expressed a disapproval of them and are quite furious, however many are still unaware of their clients being targeted by Rightmove and their outcry is yet to come.
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Amazing move by Rightmove marketing department.
Surely this could have been handled better by communicating with agents – their main source of income?