The UK challenger portal Boomin which is set to launch this month has taken a bold move by inviting its agent customers to apply for a position on the portal company's board of directors. Application to the paid position will be open to all 'founder agents' who have already signed up for the portal's offer of equity and free use of the portal until 2022 and will be voted for by their fellow founder agents.
The move to give a directorship to an agent-customer is apparently unprecedented in the industry and part of the company's aims that Executive Chairman Michael Bruce set out in an email to founder agents yesterday:
"Boomin wants to deliver innovative, partnership solutions for agents that are great for them and great for their customers and Boomin. We want to have a lasting level of clarity, transparency, integrity and trust with agents who will always be a key part of everything we do at Boomin."
The lucky winner of the directorship will receive compensation of £25,000 per year and hold "direct influence over the strategy, direction and execution of the company and will become the voice of agents up and down the country."
The move is yet another that Boomin's founders the Bruce brothers have come upon to win over agents in a market notoriously suspicious of newcomers and portal company motives. There is still rancor in the industry around the brothers' former company Purplebricks and the pair have been warned by agency review site allagents.com not to repeat what it called the “PB bullying tactics" which lead to legal disputes with the review site.