Lai-san Kwok and Eileen Mary Hastings - Hong Kong Institute of ...

Surveying and Built Environment Vol 17(1), 27-34 June 2006 ISSN 1816-9554business”, “cold calling or mailing” and “existingclient”. The three most frequently adoptedcommunication channels are “advertisement inshops”, “advertisement in newspaper” and“brochures”.Among interviewees of questionnaire 2,marketing and branding strategy is perceived tobe very important to real estate agencycompanies. It is agreed among respondents thatbranding is a better indicator of service qualitythan price. The five most important brandingattributes perceived by the practitioners are“personalized service”, “quality level”, “price”,“expertise” and “reputation”.DISCUSSION OF RESULTMarketing is a process starting from the internalof company and then expands to reach theexternal market. Marketing is aiming atdifferentiating and communicating the servicewith the customers. Ultimately, it persuades thecustomer to buy the product. In the process, oneneed to identify the nature of product supplied,nature of the industry and competitive advantagesof the company.Marketing is important for all the real estateagency companies as it assists in matching thedemand of customer with the supply ofcompanies. By attaining equilibrium in demandand supply, the company can run in an efficientway. Marketing also assists in varying thedemand curve and hence more of the service isdemanded. Eventually, the company’s turnoverwould increase. It helps in sustaining thedevelopment of the real estate agencycompanies at the same time. The importance ofmarketing is demonstrated in the Questionnaire2. The average importance of marketing is8.75 (maximum score = 10). Therefore the realestate companies believed marketing is essentialfor the success of company.Real estate agency industry is highly competitive.In order to stand out in the market, marketing isrequired to build a market position. The marketposition assists in differentiating service suppliedby one company from its competitors. It is stronglyagreed among respondents that a clear marketposition allows more effective marketing. In orderto establish a market position, attributes areneeded. But before attributes are examined, it isnecessary to consider the nature of the real estateagency industry.It is argued by some scholars (like Lovelock,Patterson and Walker (2001)) that “People” of7Ps is the most important attributes. This argumentagreed with the findings. In the Questionnaire1, “personnel” is regarded as the most importantfactors that the respondents perceived to affectthe customer’s choice on service employment. Itis because real estate agency industry involvesa great contact between people. The interactionsbetween the agency personnel and customer arehigh. This nature of business further exaggeratesthe importance of personnel on business. Nowonder Lovelock, Patterson and Walker (2001)write“It has been said that the person delivering theservice is the services - that is, customerassessment of quality are often based largely onhow they assess the person with whom they aredealing.”Apart from “people”, “place” in 7Ps is alsoimportant for marketing. The study agreed withthe statement as “location” is ranked the secondby the respondents. But it is found that theinterpretation of the word is not the same betweenthe large scale company with more than 100staffs and that small scale with less than 20 staffsthough both companies perceive convenientlocation is of advantage to the business.However, for large scale company, convenientscale is aiming at serving customers all aroundthe city or even the world. They are usuallylocated in the central business district. On thecontrary, due to the constraint of small scalecompanies, “location” is part of the channelstrategy. It is aiming at serving the peoplesSBE29