Hill-Duckworth - Ground breaking new web site

Hill Duckworth Estate Agents - Screenshot of web site

Hill-Duckworth is a vibrant and innovative company, devoted to providing the highest possible customer care in estate agency services.

A constantly up-to-date web site has become an essential tool for any estate agent and whilst Hill-Duckworth did have a web presence, the design and functionality was in need of updating. Moreover, Hill-Duckworth recognised that the first port of call for property purchasers is now the Internet and asked Rochdale Online to develop a completely automated alert system within their web site.

Rochdale Online provided Hill-Duckworth with a database driven solution utilising Active Server Pages.

This dynamic site enables visitors to easily view constantly up-to-date stock lists of properties, to view comprehensive property details including photographs, and fine tune their search for a property to a specific type in a selected area and a particular price range.

The site also enables download and printing of stock lists and individual property print facilities, with and without thumbnail photographs.

Other features include dynamic request detail form and email to a friend facility and a mortgage calculator linked to each property for sale and editable by the site visitor. Parameters inputted (e.g. deposit, interest rate, etc.) by site visitors to the mortgage calculator are stored for use throughout the site.

However, the ground breaking feature is the comprehensive automated alert system that allows potential purchasers to register online and receive alerts via email, mobile phone or the post based on their own individual requirements. Each time a property is uploaded to the database the alert system checks to see if it matches the requirements of each individual registered and sends appropriate alerts. Potential purchasers can also edit their requirements and the method of delivery and delete their registration at any time via the web site with no intervention needed by Hill-Duckworth.

Hill-Duckworth also use the Rochdale Online content management system to update the site daily. Integration with the Rochdale Online Classifieds section and automatic synchronisation via the Rochdale Online content management system affords exposure on the agents local web portal at no extra cost.