James Du Pavey

About James Du Pavey

James Du Pavey Estate Agents is a well-established independent agency with four residential branches, serving clients across the Midlands and Northwest UK.

For over 15 years, the agency relied on the same legacy software before making the switch to Street.co.uk and Spectre, embracing a more modern and efficient approach to estate agency. Known for their flexible, personal service, James Du Pavey Estate Agents tailors their approach to suit each client’s unique needs.

Recently, we spoke with the team to learn how using both Street.co.uk and Spectre has improved their operations, enhanced client experiences, and supported their continued success.

The Challenge

Before adopting Street.co.uk and Spectre, James Du Pavey Estate Agents operated with a more traditional approach to estate agency, which presented inefficiencies in their day to day operations.

Manual reporting processes and direct mail preparation were time-consuming, while managing property onboarding, tracking viewing feedback, and consolidating information needed extra effort. And often, their tech systems often required information to be entered more than once.

This was becoming a strain on operations, but James knew there’d be a smarter way to run their agency, so began investigating new software options to help lift the load.

The Solution

By exploring new technology, James Du Pavey aimed to streamline operations while maintaining the high level of personal service they are renowned for. James had been keeping an eye on Street.co.uk and Spectre for some time after previously receiving a demo of Street.co.uk.

While at the time James was unsure whether his client base were ready for a mobile-first transition, he couldn’t get Street.co.uk out of his head and made the switch as soon as he felt the time was right.

By switching to Street.co.uk, James and the team were able to consolidate their systems, reducing the need for double-entry. They also benefited from enhanced reporting functionality in the KPI Dashboard that provided greater insights into how they were performing against the metrics that matter to their business growth.

After a few months on Street.co.uk, James Du Pavey also decided to join Spectre, Street.co.uk’s companion all-in-one marketing platform, to streamline their operations. The seamless two-way feed between the Street.co.uk CRM and Spectre allowed client data to synchronise effortlessly and high-resolution property photos to be included across marketing collateral without any extra effort.

James even made the switch from a competitor property reporting tool to Spectre Property Reports because it was more valuable to keep everything within the same ecosystem. As James put it, “It’s just like Apple—where everything is built to work perfectly together.”.

“Since switching to Street.co.uk and Spectre, it has been really interesting to see how our tech stack has evolved. Originally, there were so many different tools that we had to use to get results and now we’ve just got one complete ecosystem that aligns it all”.

With these new tools in place, James Du Pavey Estate Agents found they could operate more efficiently, offer better transparency to clients, and future-proof their business with technology designed for continuous development.

“Using the products together is really working well. There are some real transitional changes for us but integrating everything we do with the workflows on both Street.co.uk and Spectre has proved to work out better for us in the long run”.

‍The Results

Since implementing Street.co.uk and Spectre, James Du Pavey Estate Agents has seen an improvement in their efficiency, saving the team “a quarter, if not half a person’s time” that was typically spent on manual processes. 

“It hasn’t overhauled how we want our business to operate but it has completely enhanced our success”.

With a more streamlined vendor onboarding process, enhanced reporting, and automated direct mail campaigns, the team has been able to focus more on client service while reducing time spent on manual tasks.

“Ultimately, your software can almost define how you run your business, so I had to find software that was going to align with our clients’ needs, as well as improving things for us. This software definitely creates a better experience for everybody because it helps us to be more efficient - and efficiency is our biggest driver.”

Street.co.uk’s App has given agents instant access to key property information, making client interactions more seamless and professional. The Consumer App has also transformed their clients’ experience, offering complete transparency and real-time updates on their property’s marketing. Members of the team carrying out viewings now have immediate access to FAQs, improving the quality of both their property viewings and buyer interactions. 

Spectre’s integration with Street has massively enhanced the agency’s marketing efforts, allowing for more targeted and effective direct mail campaigns. Using Spectre, the team now benefits from advanced property insights, high-quality and versatile marketing materials, as well as automated direct mail at key intervals across all homemoving journeys—all contributing to better engagement with potential clients. 

“The Propensity to Sell AI Model is a huge timesaver which allows us to be more efficient with our marketing spend. We can focus our efforts on small things like the number of bedrooms, the type of property we want to deal with, and choose a radius around the location and we’ve seen a lot of results through it”.

Beyond efficiency gains and marketing spend savings, the agency has embraced a more modern approach, cutting printing costs, integrating new technology, and preparing for future innovations, including moving over to Spectre Email Marketing. With these tools in place, James Du Pavey Estate Agents remains committed to delivering outstanding client service while staying ahead of industry trends.

“Street.co.uk and Spectre have added to the success we were already seeing because there have been so many more touchpoints for our clients”.

Want to streamline your agency’s tech stack without overcomplicating your operations? Speak to a member of our team today.