It is one year since the pandemic took us by surprise. In Spain we had a hard lockdown for a period of two months, life almost froze for a while.
A lot had changed, all plans had to be postponed, trips had to be rescheduled and you could only meet your loved ones at the zoom…. many have written about this and I will not repeat it.
Since I belong to the group of optimists, I would like to sum up the last 12 months just like that.
As the old saying goes, “there is no such thing as good”. We learned a great deal about ourselves during this time, including how we can behave in crisis situations. The whole Agnes Inversiones team did a great job. The first few months were very nerve-wracking and no one knew when we would be able to return to work and whether there would be anything to return to. We all worked from home trying our best to meet our clients’ expectations.
For staff who have children, this was a particular challenge, because we know that online school is an even more difficult time on the organisational side. We all had to work a lot more and the stress and uncertainty was with us all the time.
A company with several employees is really a small family. All the more so if we are all Polish and have lived abroad for many years. We work together, we are friends and in a crisis situation it was a difficult situation for me. I was sleepless at night thinking about how to get the company through this difficult period, how to keep all the employees and what to do so that their and my income would allow a normal life.
We did it. It wasn’t a miracle just hard work by the whole team to get through the difficult months.
We practically closed 2020 at the same level as 2019, with the last quarter characterised by very strong sales growth.
I would like to thank everyone who has contributed directly or indirectly by recommending us to further clients. Looking back over the last 12 months I have started to see even more of what constitutes the ‘greatness’ of a company and I mean not the quantity of staff but the quality. Many estate agencies have gone bankrupt in recent months as a consequence of the pandemic. Some were geared to clients who come in off the street and disappeared when they ran out, while others waited with their hands folded until things changed and it was business as usual.
I would like to go back to the beginning of my company, when I started out on my own – my aim was not only to sell myself, but also to accompany clients after the sale, when problems started. When they wanted to make renovations, when there was a problem with paying a bill or buying a car. “My” client was never left alone.
At first I helped to sort out all the issues myself and over time a management department was set up. Its job was to help customers solve any problems after the sale.
For a long time this department was not profitable, but my aim was to keep the customer happy, because such a customer is the best ambassador for my company.
I knew, I believed, that it would start to bear fruit one day.
And so, during the pandemic, the biggest client that came to us was a client from a referral. Our wide range of services was appreciated. Thanks to our good reputation among our customers and today I could call most of them our friends, we managed not only to survive, but to maintain our turnover at 2019 levels – a success in the current situation.
As I write this – I’m laughing to myself – if someone had ever told me at the start of my business journey that clients would have such confidence in us to decide to buy a property over the phone in the literal sense (they viewed the property with us via FaceTime) – I would never have believed it. And yet we have had several such sales in the last year!
Without exception, the whole team works in such a way that the client chooses and buys a good property. Of course, we work for commission because that is the source of our income, but we try to find the best possible property for the client. We don’t look at where the commission is higher by persuading the client to buy where it will be best for us.
When we analyse a property, we also think about the fact that the same client will come back to us in the future, wanting to exchange it for a smaller or larger property. We always ask ourselves whether the property they want to buy will be easy to sell or not.
No one planned for a pandemic and today we know that some people have found themselves with liquidity constraints, hence our task is to find a good property that can be sold easily and quickly if necessary.
I’m happy that the whole team acts in such a way that the customer’s welfare is the priority. That’s the way I try to communicate to the whole team and I’m glad they do – they think and act like me. Looking back, taking stock of this last year, I think that mainly accounts for the success during the pandemic. A lot of agencies that were doing deals for deals had to close their business. Our way of working has been appreciated by many clients and in the long run as you can see ‘it’s worth being decent’.
Our job is to make dreams come true with the highest possible standards of service. It is nice to hear from our clients that, apart from work, we share a friendship. When buying a flat, some clients are concerned whether they will feel alone here, whether they will be bored – however, after several stays, they either get to know many of the ‘neighbours’ themselves or meet up at our events and years later say our ‘Spanish family’.
Today, the only problem I have is what to do so that I can meet everyone for lunch or dinner as they come to rest, but that we only have such problems these days.
Thank you to everyone who trusted us, thank you to everyone who recommended us, without you I wouldn’t be here where I am on behalf of the whole team.
What have we done besides perform well in 2020?
- In January 2020, we introduced a new CRM management system, which we were able to test in peace during the lockdown
- From February 2020 we are investing heavily in online marketing
- From June 2020, we will offer our selling or renting customers a virtual walk-through thanks to a special Matterport camera.
- In October 2020 we were among the first to be invited to join the LPA (Leading Property Agencies in Spain). We are the only member with a Polish pedigree.This is a great distinction. We are proud, because the main criterion was our reputation and fair policy of cooperation with both clients and real estate agencies.
- At the end of 2020, a new website was created (although the graphic design remained the same, the whole mechanism was changed).
- We have opened up new channels of communication with a large number of customers who visit properties with us virtually and, when circumstances permit, will see them in reality. Let’s remember that some countries still have restrictions on going abroad.
And we promise more in the near future so offer the best possible service.
And what are we going to do?
We will continue to train and invest in our company (marketing, training, equipment) so that all of this will allow us to continuously improve the service we offer our customers.
We will continue to advise our owners so that they can make the right decisions.
