New owners rebuild Purplebricks with AI CRM after £1 acquisition, slashing costs 70%

As part of its reboot as a business, hybrid online/real-world realtor Purplebricks - the UK's largest residential estate agency - has replaced legacy Salesforce and custom .NET customer-facing systems with an entirely new CRM platform, Creatio.

Though partly driven by the urgency to get what had been a strong B2C offering back on its feet following its 2023 £1 sale to new owners Strike Estate Agents, the move has more than paid back in terms of ROI, says the combined organization's CTO, Dan Raferty.

Measurable benefits include a 35% increase in lead volume compared to the previous system, a 50% boost in conversions, and response times to prospect queries dropping from a sluggish 2–3 days to under 20 minutes.

A major bonus of the refreshed technology, says Raferty, is AI that automatically scans and classifies thousands of leads, interpreting unstructured messages and identifying services requested. The new CRM ...