King & Partners, an independent Downham Market agency founded in 2018, has selected Alto, an all-in-one estate and lettings CRM, after eight years on Dezrez, as it moves off paper files and manual admin to support a lettings book that has grown from 10 properties to 180.
Based in Downham Market, a market town on the direct line to Cambridge and London, King & Partners covers a 20-mile radius across west Norfolk. The business is run by four directors, one of whom is an in-house mortgage adviser, with a team of seven in total.
While the business manages sales and lettings in equal measure, lettings has grown fastest recently, with around 180 units now under management.
For most of the last eight years, the company had used systems for basics only, with a lot of the work still done by hand, but the rapid growth had made them reconsider their options.
“We didn’t do text messages, and we still kept paper files,” said Chris Tonroe, Director, King & Partners. “That was fine when it was just the four of us. But the legislation and the changes coming into the industry mean we need to be more automated and our lettings department has growth to 180 units. We need a lot more help with the back-office work now, and that meant looking at a system that could keep up.
“We’ve had a lot of disruption in the system we’d been using,” Tonroe said. “They moved us onto their new system, which was meant to be all bells and whistles, and it was slow and glitchy.”
That disruption meant the team started looking for new systems, and AI searches and online reviews quickly established one leading provider – Alto.
“I asked AI to do some research for me,” Tonroe said. “Where other platforms sit, where Alto sits, what each one can offer that the other can’t. It came back very positive and the reviews backed it up.
“Then I spoke to Alto, and they’ve been professional and competitive throughout, and I am impressed.”
Alto’s AI tools were part of the decision, although Tonroe is clear that King & Partners remains a traditional agency at heart.
“We’re not chasing every new gimmick, because we’re still quite a traditional agent,” he said. “But what we were shown does cut the time down, and that matters.”
Nick Shaw, Chief Revenue Officer at Alto, said: “King & Partners is a great example of an agency whose lettings book has grown faster than the technology behind it.
“Chris and the team wanted the fundamentals done properly, with the compliance and the admin automated around them. We’re delighted to be supporting them as they prepare for incoming lettings legislation and the next stage of the agency’s growth.”
