Countrywide to reveal how well (or badly) it does every six months

Countrywide has taken the highly-unusual step of announcing that it will reveal key performance indicators every six months, come rain or shine.

These KPIs will extend across all of Countrywide’s activities and include sales figures, landlord retention levels, mortgage renewal rates and productivity in different departments.

In a briefing to investment analysts, it was revealed that these figures will be extracted from Countrywide’s ‘internal performance dashboard’ which is shown to board members on a frequent basis. 

The group’s chief executive, Alison Platt, has repeatedly set herself a target of doubling Countrywide’s business by 2020. The decision to publish KPIs - which in most firms are kept firmly behind closed doors - may be seen as a bid to bolster investor confidence after what Platt admits were “mixed” figures reported to the City last week.

Countrywide reported a four per cent increase in income for 2015 but a startling 37 per cent drop in operating profits after what it calls a “decline in estate agency and lettings profitability.” Its income boost was provided by particularly strong figures from financial services, commercial property and surveying. 

Countrywide has also said that its ‘extended hours’ pilot - exclusively revealed on Estate Agent Today earlier this month - will be part of a larger exercise in the second quarter of this year. 

Analysts at Jefferies consultancy have been told this will involve different service levels and ‘propositions to the customer’ offered by three different Countrywide brands and with different pricing structures for each.