Ernest Wilson
Leading Business Transfer Agency saves time and increases throughput
Established in 1956, Ernest Wilson are the largest, independent Business Transfer Agent in the United Kingdom driven by the passion that you only become the biggest by providing the very best possible service to clients.
On average Ernest Wilson are marketing over 2000 businesses for sale at any one time in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Cheshire and Cumbria.
Problem
Ernest Wilson had been using a software system that had been originally designed for the residential agency market and had been extensively converted to suit the Business Transfer market for several years. During this time small modifications had been made to keep the software working, and further accommodations had been made to the working practices of the agents to best fit the facilities of the software.
In late 2008 the directors of the business decided that investment should be made on a software system that would be current, market-leading and flexible enough to be adapted in the future.
The fundamental requirements of the software were to be able to deal with high volume, improve time efficiency, streamline existing processes, and to be suitable to the specific needs of the Business Transfer Agency market.
Solution
When Paul Williamson, Managing Director of Ernest Wilson, first met Chris Haines at the Agency Expo it was clear that Evolvin had a clear understanding of the Business Transfer market and would be able to deliver a customised solution that fulfilled the current and future requirements of Ernest Wilson.
Commitment was made, and specification work commenced by involving several senior staff members from Ernest Wilson, along with project team members from Evolvin. During these first meetings Evolvin learned what was important for Ernest Wilson in their current systems and processes, and identified where refinements could be introduced. At the same time Evolvin designed a new website, rebranded property particulars and email template designs, the release of which was set to coincide with the go-live of the Evolvin Agency Software.
As the delivered solution has to deal with high volume and be super responsive at all times it was decided that the Evolvin Agency Software would be installed on a dedicated server in the clients offices. This database was then set to replicate to the Evolvin servers in near real-time, so that the public facing website could benefit from high speed bandwidth and resilience, whilst still being directly integrated with the agency back end.
Benefit
By introducing more streamlined processes for the production of batch printing property matching letters, which often contain more than 10,000 documents, Ernest Wilson were able to save hours of staff time every week. This process was multiplied by allowing for batching of emails and other standard letters, automated catalogue builds and production of advertising exports.
Further to this, Ernest Wilson is using a software system that has been specifically fitted to their processes, and does not allow their staff to work outside of accepted parameters. This allows their staff to focus on providing the very best possible service to clients whilst maximising revenue, using software designed for their purposes