This morning it was reported to me by one of our staff members that enquiries that were made by buyers weeks ago on www.realestate.com.au have just been turning up in the mail.

Now in many offices it is not unusual for salespeople to be handling enquries days and even weeks later but that is not a problem we normally have. At first nobody noticed and we went about handling the enquiries as they came in. Then a couple of buyers complained that it had taken us to long to get back to them, but the problem was we had only had the enquiry turn up in some cases minutes before hand.

Checking the email and in the top left hand corner REA places the date of that enquiry and for the example of this I am going to use, the enquiry was made on  the 8th of May yet was only delivered this morning at 8:01am on the 20th of June.

When this was brought to my attention I checked the email headers (which I will paste in full at the end) which reveals  that the delay appears to be happening inside REA servers. (more…)