UK reference agency launches PeopleValue Advantage scheme

This article has been supplied by our channel sponsor, PeopleValue.

About HomeLet
HomeLet is the UK’s largest supplier of referencing to the lettings industry. There are circa 12,000 letting agents in the UK and HomeLet has more than 25 per cent of their market. They support a growing network of more than 3,000 letting agents delivering fast, accurate and intelligent references for around one in five private tenants. HomeLet has referenced more than a million tenants in the last three years alone and helps more than 1,500 people move home every day.

In addition to referencing, it provides a range of specialist products to assist letting agents protect and grow their businesses, including office insurance especially for letting and estate agents, a professional indemnity policy to help to protect their reputation and solutions that protect their management income by guaranteeing rental payments.

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Working through letting agents, the company is currently protecting more than £140m of rental income, and last year it paid out £3m in claims. HomeLet operates through a field sales force whose role is to both work with existing clients and attract new ones.

Programme background
HomeLet operates in a highly competitive market where quality and speed of service is of critical importance. When HomeLet set up in 1992, there were only two to three competitors; today there are upwards of 30. HomeLet differentiates itself through having excellent internal processes in place, which allows it to turn around references very quickly, thus delivering high levels of customer satisfaction.

However, in order to further differentiate itself from competitors, reinforce customer loyalty and provide a compelling offer to new customers, HomeLet has developed a Premier and PremierPlus proposition, to which more than 50 per cent of its existing customer base has already signed up.

‘We wanted to set up a programme that made our offer more compelling to the letting agents and encouraged their long-term loyalty,’ said Andy Wynne-Jones, head of underwriting at HomeLet.

For a small fee, letting agents join the HomeLet Premier proposition, which gives them access to online business packages to support their operations and additional tools to help them compete in the market. Joining this scheme gives letting agencies access to a wealth of business tools.

Building customer loyalty
HomeLet is continually looking for innovative ways of improving the value of its Premier proposition in order to stay ahead of the competition.

‘We’re constantly reviewing the market in a search for ways to further build customer loyalty and recognised that an offer like that of PeopleValue Advantage represented a high-value addition to the Premier proposition,’ said Wynne-Jones.

Following an extensive review of the market, HomeLet selected PeopleValue Advantage, rebranded it HomeLet Advantage and launched it to its customer base. Today a growing number of its letting agent customers are signing up for access to the offers that Advantage is able to provide for members.

‘The response from our letting agency community to HomeLet Advantage has been very good; we are getting more and more request for logons,’ said Wynne-Jones.

About PeopleValue Advantage
PeopleValue Advantage has established itself as a proven and highly successful offer around which to build a powerful customer loyalty programme. It provides participants with online access to thousands of discounts and cashback offers on a wide range of products and services to suit all tastes. It is easy to deploy, communicate and manage, providing organisations with a highly cost-effective offer to build and maintain customer loyalty.

Advantage can be customised and branded in an organisation’s own corporate image and can be easily and rapidly integrated into any existing programme, significantly enhancing a customer loyalty programme as has been done with HomeLet. For organisations deploying Advantage, the choice of features and capabilities include an extensive suite of self-service online management information, full branding capabilities, a customer communications channel and the ability to run online surveys.

The role and value of PeopleValue
Once selected, PeopleValue supported HomeLet in the launch of Advantage to its community in terms of the communications, supporting collateral, content and branding.

‘PeopleValue Advantage provides us with a real competitive edge and that’s why we have deployed it. It’s constantly being improved and enhanced both in terms of the content and the offers and the supporting functionality. Most recently the addition of a full suite of management reporting has been extremely useful,’ said Wynne-Jones.

Central to PeopleValue’s philosophy is the need to never stand still. Advantage is subject to a continuing programme of improvement to the nature and breadth of the offers it provides. In addition, it is continually improving the user experience while developing its value to the management of the organisations that deploy it.

‘PeopleValue is an excellent company to work with. It is very responsive, is keen to help and is very professional in its dealings with us. It really understands what we need. It offers a wide range of solutions in addition to Advantage and we are always looking at how PeopleValue’s other offers could help us achieve our objectives,’ said Wynne-Jones.