For the last 18 months, Saxon Shore have been providing residential sales and lettings to those looking to buy, sell or rent in the Faversham area.
Led by a brother and sister team that grew up in Faversham, the emphasis of the business is very much family focused with a community ethos. Saxon Shore has supported local community events such as the Faversham Garage Safari, which they sponsor to raise funds for the Faversham Creek Trust. Saxon Shore is also the official sponsor of Faversham's 365 Project, a community photography project designed to record a year in the life of Faversham through 365 photographs, one for each day of the year.
Director Liz Jeffery discussed how her business had progressed over the last year-and-a-half and the challenges she faced when starting out: “We initially had the challenge of establishing ourselves in a busy and competitive market place. We also had to work around the public perception that an estate agent needs a shop window in order to sell houses and finally, as we do not have a shop front or window the perception that we are an online agent. We have addressed all of these challenges by ensuring we have a very clear marketing strategy that focuses on the Internet and social media as our 'shop window’.”
With three employees, Liz remains very ‘hands on’ in the business. She explained: “We offer flexibility and everyone is treated as an equal, we don't believe in job titles as we all ‘muck in’ together as we are part of the same team. Staff are key to our business as we are so focused on customer service and we believe you cannot deliver outstanding customer service if you do not have staff that feel supported and encouraged by their employers.”
With customer service being such a key factor, Liz feels that Saxon Shore can back up their promise to provide a premium service for a standard fee. The business’ is five-star rated by customer reviews on Facebook and Feefo and over 60% of new business comes from referrals or repeat business.
Finally, Liz spoke about what she felt set her business apart: “We dared to try something different and we wanted to bring a ‘fresh approach’ to estate agency and we have turned this from a concept to a working model within a year. We are very proud to have been awarded The British Property Awards winner of the best estate agent in Faversham. This award is not one you can chose to enter; it is entirely based on mystery shopping based on a set of 25 criteria focused on customer service. In addition we are consistently either top agent, or in the top three, for agents in Faversham for sales agreed and new instructions throughout 2018 from the figures provided by Rightmove. Finally, if we ever take on a property that has previously been marketed by another agent have a 100% record of selling these properties.”
Saxon Shore
The Alexander Centre
15 - 17 Preston Street
Faversham
ME13 8NZ
01795 533577
www.saxonshore.co.uk