Alto customers are integrating with Canopy to save time and level-up their service.

08 November 2023 3931 Views

In this interview, Riccardo Dawson, Chief Operating Officer at Alto and Chris Hutchinson, CEO of Canopy discuss the benefits of their integration for agents and Canopy’s experience of being a part of Alto Marketplace.

Ric, why did Alto decide to integrate with Canopy?

Alto Marketplace is all about driving efficiencies for our agent customers and enabling them to tailor their CRM to suit their individual needs. With this in mind, it was a no-brainer to partner with Canopy. Canopy provides the ability for our letting agent customers to verify the income, rental affordability and historical rent payments of prospective tenants in 5-15 minutes, instead of waiting days and weeks. A real-time saver!

We know our agent customers are also constantly looking for ways to diversify their revenue streams. Alto customers who benefit from the integration will also have the opportunity to boost their revenue with CanopyEarn. They can easily boost their income by recommending Canopy’s hand-picked products and services which include utility management, landlord insurance and void cover

Chris, tell us a bit about Canopy, how does it benefit agents?

Canopy is an eco-system built to fix pain points for letting agents, landlords and renters. We do that through using the latest technology to increase efficiencies, reduce risk and crucially, offer a great user experience. As a tenant referencing provider, we enable letting agents to receive fast, through screening of tenants using the most advanced technology in the UK.

What’s the biggest pain point for agents that you’re trying to solve?

Chris: Right now – the time it takes to review whether an applicant for a property is likely to be a good tenant. With >20 applicants for each property and over 9 hours of an agent's time being spent on average just reviewing applications, we’ve pioneered pre-qualification. By asking tenants to become “Rent Ready”, agents can easily see who are the best ones to take forward and it’s also great for serious tenants who want to stand out amongst the crowd. Beyond that, we want to cut out the risk of fraud by leveraging cutting-edge technology and by getting closer to the source of truth.

You also have an app experience, how does that work?

Chris: Tenants who are asked to complete a reference do so through our app, as do those tenants who are getting themselves pre-qualified. This is a unique offering in the referencing market, and beyond being a better way of collecting the data we need to verify the risk of a tenant, enables us to guide and educate renters through the process, building trust and removing much of the uncertainty involved with moving. Further to that, we work with tenants to improve their financial health while in a tenancy, which we’ve seen makes them less likely to fall into rent arrears – a huge benefit to agents and landlords.

Alto Marketplace now has nine different categories - why did you decide to add a tenant referencing category?

Ric: Tenant referencing is certainly one of the most time-consuming parts of being a letting agent and it was important to us that we offered ways to streamline this process within Alto. We know our letting agent customers use a wide range of tenant-referencing partners which is why we’ve been hard at work to offer five tenant-referencing integrations within Alto Marketplace, with Canopy being one of the most highly requested by our customers.

Tenant referencing is one of Alto’s most popular categories. What is it about Canopy that stands out from other providers?

Chris: We take a unique approach to referencing, using more technology than any other provider. Through the use of Open Banking, integrations directly with ‘source’ information partners such as HRMC and payroll providers, and document AI analysis, our customers can screen tenants with less fraud risk, something we’ve seen increasing as the market conditions have become tougher. Relying less on uploaded documents, also enables us to be faster, helping agents close deals in a really competitive environment.

What’s the feedback from agents on the Canopy integration and more broadly, Alto Marketplace?

Ric: We recognise that a CRM is a big investment for agents which is why we want to ensure Alto is not only set up in the best way to fulfil all their bespoke needs - but that it’s also future-proofed. Alto Marketplace has been a great way to ensure this and the reaction from agents has been incredibly positive - especially when some of them had specifically requested integrations from some of our partners like Canopy.

Chris, How was the process of integrating with Alto?

Canopy and Alto are industry leaders in technology and as such, the integration was a smooth process and now provides best-in-class referencing for agents within streamlined workflows.

For Alto customers interested in integrating with Canopy visit https://www.altosoftware.co.uk/alto-agenda/canopy/.

If you’re a Proptech interested in joining Alto Marketplace, visit our Integrations FAQs.