Clicking with the client

Surf the net for real estate agents' Polish web sites and on the whole, you'll be somewhat underwhelmed by the information you'll get; it's also unlikely you'll find anything written in Polish. Most agents here have had their sites up and running for anything from three to seven years, but this now means they're well overdue for updating

Unlike in the West, where it's possible to come across interactive internet facilities through which agents' clients can settle transactions on-line, Poland generally has some way to go before it follows suit, as far as non-residential business by international agents is concerned. "It's very expensive to set up something like that and of course these days people think more about cutting costs," says Sebastian Chmielewski of CB Richard Ellis. "We treat it, [the web site] as an information source, not as a business," says Aneta Parzuchowska of Jones Lang LaSalle.

Personal touch
In general, agents maintain that the information on their sites is updated every week but how this is presented very much varies from firm to firm. "We want to show that King Sturge is not just a name and try to emphasize the fact that real people work for it," says Dorota Dobosz of KS. Indeed a visit to either the King Sturge or CB Richard Ellis sites, gives the user a chance to put faces and job titles to names and get some idea of the background and qualifications of the different members of staff. Given the importance of personal interaction to an agent's work, this profiling is an excellent antidote to the rather desensitized activity of surfing the web and serves as an ideal introduction to the agents' work.

Language difficulties
Though both claim this is very soon about to change, neither the King Sturge nor CB Richard Ellis sites are available in Polish. In fact web site information in the local language is hard to come by on any of the agents' sites Eurobuild visited, with only Knight Frank's company history and Jones Lang LaSalle's market profile of Poland, (in pdf format) meeting this requirement. This lack of language provision is perhaps the most glaring flaw in the web sites' service to potential customers, though some offer little comprehensive information on what's happening on the Polish market anyway. Again, most claim this will all change in a few months' time.
"At the moment we are re-building our Capital Markets' site, which will be a site within the main one and will be bi-lingual," says Aneta Parzuchowska of Jones Lang LaSalle. That JLL's Research Page is also under re-construction is something you'll learn as well, once you visit the site. Colliers International claim that they will have a new global web site in operation in June this year.

Targeted information
If there is a new direction that the agents are likely to choose when re-vamping their cyber service, it is in providing their potential customers with more direct, personal contact. Already, agents such as King Sturge and DTZ include individualized 'folders' on their sites, where users can store the news or reports that are most relevant to them. Visitors receive "targeted information" says Dorota Dobosz and this includes via e-mail.