New Brand, New Office, New Ethos
Time goes by so fast. What feels like a blink of any eye, is in fact, over a decade in trading. CPS Homes opened its doors back in 2000. Back when the fear of the 'Millennium Bug' was still rife and the highlight of owning a mobile phone was having the game 'Snake' on it.
Over a decade of CPS Homes
When CPS Homes started with two enthusiastic students, the vision was simple: to create a student-friendly letting agency that vastly improved the housing service that students received. At that time when there was a lot fewer 'pop-up' letting agents promising this and that, the market was a very different place. Through the good times, and the bad times, CPS Homes has proudly achieved its goal. Every year we literally house thousands and thousands of tenants, not just students, but families and professionals alike - after all, we can't be students forever. With our goal achieved we felt it was time to reflect on the past decade of business: what have we achieved, what haven't we achieved and what did our brand actually say to people.
Our success
It is very easy for a new letting agent to open up, truth is anybody can 'open' one, just take a look around the streets, the evidence is in the variety of agency boards out there. Many of our new competitors have painted over their company foundations with promotions such as free sweets, beer and student friendly Facebook posts. This may bring in x amount of customers, but are they truly successful letting agents? We believe the real truth of a quality letting agent is in its customer service, its accreditations, returning customers and reliable landlords. The key to our success? Listening to you guys: our landlords and tenants. We asked our tenants what they wanted and we acted on it. They wanted to suggest improvements to a house before choosing to take it, we made it happen. Tenants also requested to have a check-in inspection at the start of the tenancy and also wanted a check-out appointment at the end, being in attendance at both of them, hey presto - they now come as part of our parcel.
What we have done, is learned from our mistakes and maximised on what we're good at, and that's housing people. Strip away all the promotions and the give-aways and that's what you should be left with. So, step forward the new re-branded CPS Homes.
The New Look CPS
The new brand is about coming of age, it's a new era, a new vision and
improved ethos. What we have learned over time is, whatever the
competition, its
what we - CPS Homes - can promise our customers that's actually at the
heart of it all. Hence the new logo. With a new and improved company
vision on the
cards, we felt the re-brand was important to show the change in ethos,
the way we want to do business. The focus has again been completely put
back onto
the tenants and the landlords. We want a welcoming environment, a
modern theme and a neutral, attractive company ID. Think coffee house
meets letting agent
and you start to get an idea of where the brand is going.
New Woodville Road Office
What better way to kick off a re-brand than to have a completely new office at the heart of the community that started it all off for us back in 2000. If there is a select group of people we really owe it to, is the students of Cardiff. At that age and time in life everything is a bit more uncertain, and students arguably feel a lot more vulnerable. Therefore, with an improved one to one service at the forefront of our aim, we have created another new home on the former grounds of the wonderfully 'out there' bar - The Funky Buddha Lounge (Buffalo Bar). Keeping in tune with the quirky feel of the venue, the new office will be fresh, modern and will highlight the new brand in its best light. From there we can improve our services in the area, making it more personal and easier to manage. What does this mean for our customers? Tenants get a lot better value for their money, and landlords get a more improved property management service.
Party time!
With a new brand and new office, we felt like it was time for a party.
We feel it's a myth that letting agents are boring - but just in case we
got a cool,
younger, local events and promotions company to help us co-ordinate it.
Set over the two days of October the 4th and 5th,
the new
office welcomes students of Cardiff by entertaining them with live
DJ's, a free BBQ, free beer and promotional giveaways such as great
looking t-shirts
designed by local company, I Loves The 'Diff. This is followed by an after party held at KoKo Gorilaz, with more live DJ's, giveaways and fresher's themed
fun!
For more details, check out the 'Fresh and Loving It' Office Party Facebook event page.
The future is digital
It's logical to understand that the future of business is online. Everything is done quicker and easier with the power of the web. Therefore, the fact we are updating our already award winning website means we are excited about the prospect of a shiny rebranded and upgraded website. The new brand colours are cleaner, more attractive and appealing to the eye. One of our re-brand 'facelift' aims is to get well away from the typical industrial image associated with letting agents and become more neutrally appealing. Furthermore, the way we communicate is also imperative to the re-brand, we want to speak to our customers the way they should be spoken to, and that's on a level that is friendly, calm and understanding.
There are exciting times ahead, 12 years ago we set the mark in student lettings. With a company re-brand, new office and a change in the way we operate, who knows where we will be in the next 12 years. With everything in place all we need now is if for you guys, our customers, to come and see it for yourselves, you will have the warmest of welcomes.
