What a milestone: 300,000 appointments & counting
In 2016, Ed Mead and his wife Jamie had an idea for a new property service, born out of resourcing frustrations at estate agency Douglas & Gordon, where Ed was a Director. The agency’s weekend viewing diary was often full by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, leaving the team to turn away some Saturday and Sunday viewing requests – hence losing potential revenue.
Ed’s idea for an overflow accompanied viewing support service that agents could dip in and out of – a truly flexible third-party offering available seven days a week, evenings, Bank Holidays and outside office hours – was born. Despite many of his peers dismissing the idea as unworkable, Ed pressed on.
Fast forward to 2022 and Viewber, as the company was christened, has completed its 300,000th appointment – a figure that speaks volumes for the demand of overflow viewing and property visit services. Agents – whether they’re facing a recruitment crisis, have staff off sick, are flat-out busy or choose not to work evenings and weekends – continue to book a Viewber to visit a property on their behalf whenever they need.
Many high end UK agents use local people to do their viewings, indeed you’ll rarely meet a member of staff, you’ll almost always get a viewing assistant. Viewber simply gives all agents access to the same resource.
There’s no contract, no minimum order value or strings attached. A Viewber can be booked for one viewing, a block of hours, a whole day or even an entire week, filling in for staff and becoming a professional, trained and vetted extension of any property company.
From accompanied and unaccompanied viewings, open house events, live video and WhatsApp calls from properties, block bookings, photography and floorplan creation, to fire door checks, let in and lock up appointments, sit and wait services, tenancy, asset and welfare checks, repair reports and ID verification, our Viewbers have undertaken a variety of assignments. It’s a comprehensive list.
As well as seeing rapid growth in the breadth of services we provide, we have increased the diversity of property professionals we partner with. Our core client base of sales and letting agents has been joined by property auctioneers, private landlords, property managers, housing associations, Build to Rent developers, social landlords and property-specific special purpose vehicles.
Our growth – moving Viewber out of the start-up category and firmly into the established supplier’s realm – wouldn’t have been possible without our chief executive team. Joining Ed on his journey to 300,000 appointments has been co-founder, Marcus de Ferranti. With his entrepreneurial business background and an exceptional grasp of IT, Marcus was instrumental in developing Viewber’s proptech proposition. He now oversees the operational, technical and financial functions within Viewber, while continuing to develop the company’s future proposition.
Kate Campbell-Balcombe joined Viewber in 2017, having worked extensively in the property industry, both in frontline estate and letting agency, and within the suppliers’ arena. Kate serves as COO and is responsible for Viewber’s operational, people and culture strategies. Always deepening her knowledge base and contributing more, Kate gained Chartered Manager status from the Chartered Management Institute in March 2022, is a member of the d&i Leaders Club and is Viewber’s qualified Mental Health First Aider.
We’re also proud to have pre-empted the work-from-home movement, with our board, senior leadership team and staff being home based, from day one. Our Viewbers were early beneficiaries of the upside to the freelance gig economy, choosing their own hours and appointments around family commitments, hobbies and even other jobs. These two aspects continue to attract talent and allow us to recruit for future growth.
Viewber offers a consistent UK wide service with no franchisees and a single point of access to keep things simple and maintain quality.
More milestones to celebrate
Completing 300,000 appointments certainly has a ring to it but there have been several momentous milestones since Viewber’s inception. These include:
- An in-house team that’s grown from 5 in 2016 to 36 in 2022
- A UK-wide network of more than 3000 active Viewbers
- A second year of operating as a carbon neutral company
- The launch of new fire safety services
- A dedicated Apple and Android app for our Viewber network
- A relaunched website for even better useability
- The launch of the ‘free’ ViewBuddy app in 2021, designed originally to help keep our Viewbers safe, specifically for property professionals and lone workers – now widely used by agents and endorsed by Connells.
- Consistent interest from trade press and wider media
Property professionals have been able to focus on more important things over 300,000 times since we started Viewber. If you would like to delegate property visits, reports and viewings, or maybe avail yourself of a similar service to thousands of others, contact us and we will help you on the way to your next milestone.
