Member Blog

There are many sites online that you may use to compare insurance quotes. Go Compare and Compare the Market are amongst the plethora of websites that help you to save time and money on your insurance. But what if there was an easy way to compare vehicle finance?

Chatsbrook, are independent, we are not tied to one product or lender, much like these online services, we search the market for deals and deliver the best suited ones to you. With a SAF (Specialist Automotive Finance) approved team you can be confident that dealing with knowledgeable experts who are trained to such a  high standard shall provide the correct advice and guidance so that you can purchase your next car with a finance product that meets your needs. The main difference is that we provide a personal service on finance arrangements. Our ethos is built upon providing excellent, personal customer service that you can depend on. The benefit of speaking directly to our clients is that it ensures your requirements are fully understood.   If you use sites like Confused.com to save you money on your insurance, why not explore how much money you could save on your vehicle finance with us?   Whether you want to live your dream and purchase a supercar, or save money on a current arrangement, call to obtain a new finance quote with Chatsbrook on 01603 733500 to see how much money you will save.    Email info@chatsbrook.co.uk to find out what we could offer you.

If you have an idea for a business venture, it may help to know that Chatsbrook can relieve you of financial strain. Whatever the industry your business is in, our extensive portfolio means that financial advice given comes from a wealth of experience. 

If you have a young business, working with a broker that understands your needs can prove invaluable. We can provide you with advice and a range of affordable finance agreements-including loans- to help your business off it’s feet. Working with Chatsbrook from the offset gives your business a chance to thrive, as our relationship develops so will your financials year on year. 

Our business loans allow our clients to acquire assets without an age restriction. They are an unsecured finance agreement which can allow your cash to be used in the most productive way. Releasing cash can enable your business to sit in a better financial position, allow a contingency for unexpected situations and aid reinvestment in smarter business solutions. In some circumstances that require a quick turnover, a business loan may be a better alternative to finance options as it can be obtained quicker. Have a conversation with our experts on 01603 733500 to find out how we can help your business flourish.

Whether you are a new business, or an established one, we endeavour to support you every step of the way. Parting with large sums of money in a short time period can be avoided with the use of our services. Chatsbrook understand that cash flow is vital for businesses, which is why we offer bespoke finance arrangements that work specifically for you. With lower monthly repayments and fixed interest rates, you can invest in new equipment such as hardware/software, technology and machinery, without feeling that there is a cavity in your wallet. 

We strongly believe that it is imperative to support growing UK businesses to help the British economy overall. By supporting businesses today, we are paving the way for a better tomorrow. Email info@chatsbrook.co.uk to find out more on how we can help you and your business.

A suppliers route to finance is not always the best avenue to take if you would like to save money. We at Chatsbrook are dedicated to finding our customers the most competitive finance package on the market. In an interview with Adrian Brooks-Director of Chatsbrook- he discussed our business ethos and growth, as well as clients worries and how we can help to overcome them.

From the copious, positive customer testimonials it is clear that Chatsbrook pulls out all the stops for each individual customer. Our ethos, as stated by Adrian is “To provide competitive finance packages from the outset with credible customer service. We have a genuine passion and care about the outcome. It’s not just about doing business once, it is about creating loyal customers that continue to use our services.”

There is a general misconception that suppliers will always offer the best deal. Creating financial agreements with suppliers may seem like the easiest way to purchase an asset, but quite often it doesn’t save you time or money. Adrian advised that “There is always an alternative finance route to customers rather than choosing the suppliers route- it is always worth looking at other options. There are better deals out there.”

In a world of competition, Chatsbrook sets the benchmark for business conducted with integrity and morality. We just “aim to do right by the customer”.

Our finance packages are modified to suit each individual need. Adrian articulated “When we agree a finance package we like to ensure that it fits any persons affordability”. We do not create finance arrangements that could burden you, instead they are streamlined to make sure that they do not effect your quality of life. Finance agreements can also be arranged to help free up your cash flow, which is something that may be desirable if you are in the commercial industry.

There are many benefits to using Chatsbrook. For instance, the speed that we can turn things around, our transparency and genuine care for each outcome. But there is one particular added security benefit that should be noted. Adrian explained “If you have purchased something on finance that goes wrong, there is a third party in the agreement that can make contact with the supplier on behalf of the customer.” In some cases, it can take the weight of an additional company-like Chatsbrook- to put pressure on the supplier to rectify an issue if something happens to an asset.

If you have an asset in mind that you would like to finance, your next step could be to contact us for a free quote on 01603 733500 today. If you have any additional questions then feel free to email now at info@chatsbrook.co.uk

We at Chatsbrook, promise to provide you with an efficient service to save you time AND money.

How much deposit do I need?

Some agreements start from as a little as zero. However, for the majority of agreements we would recommend a deposit from 10% of the value of the asset.

Which finance package would suit me best?

If you wish to own the vehicle/asset we would recommend either a Hire Purchase (HP) or Lease Purchase (LP).

If you wanted to have use of the asset but not own at the end of the agreement then Contract Hire, Operating Lease or Finance Lease may be the option for you.

You can find out more about our finance options in our Finance Solutions Explained page.

Alternatively speak to one our experts on 01603 733500 or email Consumer Credit Act (CCA). After making the outstanding payments you will be entitled to a rebate of interest charges for the period of time that would have been left on the agreement.

If you have an unregulated agreement there is no provision for early settlement. If you want to get out of the agreement, you will have to pay all the outstanding payments. However,  some lenders will give a very small % reduction.

Can I transfer my agreement to someone else?

Personal agreements cannot transferred. Agreements would need to be settled by the original party and a new agreement can created for the new applicant.

Corporate agreements can potentially be novated across to a new business.

What paperwork do I need?

We ask all clients to complete an initial Finance Proposal suitable for the applicant status (Personal or Business Application).

Private clients shall need to produce photographic ID in the form of a Drivers Licence or copy of a Passport. Whereas Business Clients will have to provide a copy of the most recent business accounts or bank statements for the business over the last three months.

What are my termination rights?

Regulated agreements can be cancelled within 14 days.

Unregulated agreements have no cancellation rights.

In the contemporary world, the majority of companies rely on technology to successfully run their business. At Chatsbrook, we understand that technology empowers businesses, so investing in equipment with a flexible finance product is a smart solution. Our client Richard Pike Associates are now benefitting from financing new software and hardware.

Richard Pike Associates are building, design and planning specialists that help clients to achieve their dream home. They work with individuals looking to remodel a conservatory, all the way through to working with some of the largest housebuilders and housing associations in the UK. Much like Chatsbrook, they cater to client’s individual needs which can include organising contractors and providing technical drawings on projects. Their aim is to “to deliver high quality, innovative building and design solutions with outstanding customer service in a supportive work environment to exceed our client’s expectations.”

Richard Pike Associates have been working with Chatsbrook for a little over a year now, and during that time we have helped RPA to finance state of the art software and hardware.

“We used to primarily use AutoCAD and still do use it sometimes but now the new ArchiCAD software which we funded is far more advanced for Architecture. It allows us to do realistic 3D design as if you were building it with the actual materials on screen, rather than just drawing lines, you use objects such as bricks and insulation. This means more accuracy and less issues when a builder goes to build it. Time wise the new software takes more time to use but less issues and revisions down the line.

The new Hardware financed was the new printer/plotter/scanner. Before we had a 10 year old plotter which would take minutes to print out an A1 drawing. Now the new one will print in around 20 seconds. This obviously saves a lot of time!”

The benefits reaped by contemporary hardware and software financed through Chatsbrook, not only benefits the team of Richard Pike Associates, but their customers too. As they are afforded an efficient and flexible service that can keep up with the changing needs of RPA’s customers- and within budget. 

Financing new hardware and software can be beneficial to most businesses, as like info@chatsbrook.co.uk

Sometimes orthodox finance solutions may not be best suited to you and your needs. At Chatsbrook we ensure that our clients always have the means to grasp every opportunity that presents itself.

Refinance is a finance solution that allows you to release equity from assets you already own or currently finance, so you can conquer every opportunity.

On one particular instance we were approached by a customer who wanted to purchase land for a new business venture. He stated that he wished to quickly fund the purchase over a scale of five years. The most orthodox way of purchasing land would have been through a Land Mortgage, but due to the desired term and speed it did not appeal to the customer.

After speaking to our panel of lenders, we were able to locate a lender without an ‘Aged Asset’ policy and secure equity release from refinancing the client’s agricultural machinery,  one 2012 Class Lexon and two 2014 New Holland tractors. Refinancing his existing assets was better suited to his needs as it raised the £140,000 capital he desired for the agreed 60 month timescale against the value of his assets. This was a great example of how Refinancing can provide funding for a business opportunity when the more orthodox route to purchase, in this case a Land Mortgage, is less suited to the customer.

The client was impressed by the quick decision and turn around, and was also happy to have enrolled in a new business project.

As one of the oldest industries, Farming and agriculture has always been integral to our economy. Investing in contemporary equipment is one way to keep up with market fluctuations and improve sustainability. Chatsbrook understand that investing in new machinery is vital to the development of the enterprise culture within the farming and agriculture industry.

If you have capital tied up in assets, then Refinancing or Equity Release may be an option for you. Refinance provides financial stability, as you can restructure existing monthly repayments. Equity Release provides financial flexibility as you are able to raise capital from assets you already own.

At Chatsbrook, the service we provide is dedicated to ensuring your personal and business needs are completely taken care of. We listen to your requirements and advise accordingly, only ever offering the best competitive deal on the market. Ring us today for a free quote 01603 733500 or email info@chatsbrook.co.uk

The weather has turned colder, in fact, this October was the coldest recorded this decade. With this cold weather, rodents start looking for a warm home. The best control, as with all pests, is to do what you can to avoid them becoming a nuisance in the first place. We call this prevention!

Rodents, rats, mice and even squirrels can cause a lot of damage to homes, and businesses. From destroying furniture, chewing through wires and cables to spreading disease.

Spotting the signs of an infestation

Rats and mice are certainly most active at night, therefore it is often easier to spot the signs of an infestation than the actual pests.

You may find their droppings or marks they leave as they travel along their routes, you may hear scratching noises at night, find holes (they dig extensive burrow systems); also watch out for teeth marks (rodents need to gnaw continuously to keep their teeth short). They will use whatever soft material is available to them to make a nest – including loft insulation, cardboard, so keep a lookout for shredded material.

Preventing the problems rodents cause can be easier than trying to control an infestation.

Here are a few tips that could save you from having rodents:

• Rodents are attracted to a property if they can detect potential food sources.
• Keep foodstuffs in containers with tight-fitting lids.
• Don’t throw scraps of food outside and make sure all food waste is securely wrapped and always stored in the appropriate bin.
• Repair any small holes in brickwork and holes in outside walls, floorboards or skirting boards. They will find a way to enter your property!
• Tidy cupboards and remove any potential nesting material. As we said earlier, rodents will use any soft material such as loft insulation and cardboard.
• Keep your home or business tidy. The less clutter there is the fewer places they will have to hide.
• Clean up any waste pet food or bird seed debris regularly. Store these items in containers with fitted lids and preferably above ground level.
• Keep gardens free from debris and clutter.
• Don’t put food waste in your compost bins. This is sure to attract mice and rats.
• Do act quickly and call in the professionals to prevent a larger infestation developing.
• If you have already spotted signs of rats or mice such as droppings, it may already be too late. Give us a call as soon as you can on freephone 0800 980 9609.

Don’t give the pests a chance to breed and become a major infestation. Only a professional rodent control programme can provide reassuring protection from the risk of rats and mice on your premises. Request a free survey on our website. 

Over the last few weeks this column has looked at the various stages of a marketing strategy. It’s gone from building awareness with your prospects to being found at the research or comparison stages through to the actual point of all this marketing effort: the conversion, or sale. We have looked briefly at some really big subjects and mentioned products in passing that really do need explaining more thoroughly. It is true that the devil is in the detail – there truly aren’t shortcuts to success. Marketing a business needs to be a well planned and thought-out affair, and to avoid it also being cripplingly expensive, a business must be able to understand which product might give the needed outcome. It becomes even more tricky when you factor in the chaos that is people. People are active on social media in the evening, looking at purchases on a desktop computer during their lunch hour, and searching on their mobile phone while walking the high street. Getting people (or potential customers) to your business can be like herding cats. Your potential customers are all over the place: gone are the days when ads in the Yellow Pages and local newspapers covered all bases, now your customers can be anywhere and looking for you at any time of day. Advertising success for a business now comes from understanding all of the platforms, methods and routes to your market. Over the next couple of weeks we will look at the individual tools you can use in a little more detail. We will have a look at display and brand building advertising, websites, PPC, SEO and social media in a little more detail. Each week we will take a different group of products and highlight their strengths, the best way to use them and if you are interested we will point you to some useful content on our website for more help. If you want to get started, and build the basis for a good marketing strategy you can start looking at an overview of marketing tools and purchase funnels.

FKGB Accounting was named after its founders, Farley Kaye and Gary Bloch. An accountancy firm originating from London, England, the company has moved to Tel Aviv in Israel to assist individuals and companies who are trading in both countries. With Israel having a fast moving tech, research and development and pharmaceutical industry, there is huge scope for companies to work with FKGB. 

We were approached by the client to help their website rank in Israel (google.co.il) for UK accountants in Israel. So if you are an Israeli company and looking for specific accountants with a knowledge and understanding of the UK, FKGB would be the right fit for you. This can relate to companies or individuals too and how it affects their trusts, inheritance and finances too.

Updating their website

FKGB have just launched a new website and when doing this, you need to do a full SEO check to ensure that you do not lose any of your rankings. Several anomalies can occur including missing meta-data, descriptions, crawl errors and broken pages which emerge as a result of new URLs and pages being changes. This was the first priority for the SEO work we did, going through every single page and making sure that it is optimised. We also went through over 100 images on the website and added alt-text which Google looks for to read the image more effectively. Other additions included the generation of a new sitemap, robots txt file and settings on Yoast SEO.

Next steps

As we continue with SEO with FKGB over the next few months, we have to position FKGB as the one-stop shop and the ‘go-to’ place for UK accountants in Israel. This will be achieved through the additional of regular content (one news or article per week) and the acquisition of relevant links from Israeli-based news and finance websites – with relationships already sparked with the likes of Arutz Sheva and The Jerusalem Post.

Elsewhere, we need to ensure that the search results are not just in English but Hebrew too – so we have suggested the addition of landing pages written in Hebrew so that we can cover all our bases.

In the first month, we did not only maintain the strong search results but also lifted them significantly as FKGB ranks number 1 in Israel for ‘British Accountants’ – we will therefore scale our strategy to incorporate other keywords too.

In order to get working on the website of our client Trovex, we had to spend some time getting familiar with the services they offer and the general get to know the general tone of their company so that we could reflect this in their content and meta-data. This is always a vital part of working with any company as we want any content on their site to appeal to their target audience.

Trovex provides superior hygienic surfaces and systems for walls, ceilings, doorsets and washrooms. All the while, their solutions work to enhance the hygiene and functionality in healthcare, leisure, hospitality and commercial environments.

Trovex’s client base was very impressive, including the NHS, and they have many years of experience. As a digital marketing company, some of these terms are very specific so we had to take time to develop an undetstanding of the product and how we could target them effectively on Google. Our keyword research and approach is moving away from very specific projects to more general times such as commercial washrooms, bathroom suppliers and hospital refurbishments.

Meta-Data

In SEO, one of the most important things to get right is the meta-date of a website. This includes meta-descriptions, meta-title and alt-text on images. In these are not all correctly optimised it can seriously damage the websites ranking potential. In fact, good optimisation of keywords in the meta-titles can be the difference between ranking on the first couple of pages and the last few pages.

We ran a standard health check on the Trovex website. From this, it became clear that each page was missing a meta-description and the images present on the site did not feature an alt-text. Therefore, we made it our priority to getting working on writing these up and adding them in across the entire site and all of its 111 pages.

Crawl Errors and Response Codes

If you want a website to rank well on a search engine, then you will need to turn your attention to the health of the websites to identify whether there are any crawl errors or broken response codes which might affect it. These are broken links on the website, broken pages and any links that are redirecting to others – but by cleaning everything up, you enable a much smoother indexing of the website.

The initial results for Trovex in the first month are extremely positive. Once the site has been fully fixed from a health check perspective, we then need to scale our SEO activity through useful content relating to hygience and bathrooms and generating links from strong, trusted resouces in the health and business sector.

There are likely to be many reasons and scenarios as to why you miss calls. Perhaps you have insufficient staff but can’t justify recruiting anyone else or much of your day is spent in meetings. You don’t have back up during peak holiday times or when an employee is off sick. Maybe there is a problem with the phone line itself.

Whatever it is, have you considered what image this may be portraying to the outside world? How your prospects and customer may feel when they can’t reach you and how this could have a very negative impact on your business?

Your customers shoes…

When a call is missed, there will be one of three things that your caller is experiencing…whilst reading through these it’s worth thinking about a time when you needed to reach someone you wanted to do business with.

1. They call, the call rings out before they hang up 2. They call, the line is engaged, or they are put on hold for a long period of time before hanging up 3. They get your voicemail option

Regardless of the scenario that your customer is faced with, it’s frustrating. In most cases, they are calling you to either find out more about your product/service or to discuss a purchase they have already made.

Calling for the first time

When someone is calling you for the first time and is unable to get through, it just looks like their call is unimportant to you and that, should they eventually place their order and there is a problem, they will have issues getting this resolved.

Existing customers

If they are an existing customer wanting to discuss their purchase, missing their call will leave them feeling neglected and a little helpless particularly if their call is already relating to an issue that they need to get resolved.

It’s worth remembering at this point that people will shout a lot more about a bad experience than they will a good one. Social media and our impulsive review culture is fantastic for generating sales but can also be your biggest enemy.

First impressions count…

Using a call answering service such as Pocket Receptionist will significantly improve your reputation almost overnight and even if your caller’s issue can’t be resolved on that first call, they have been acknowledged – that makes a massive difference and shows that you value them!

Volkswagen confirm manufacturing of the VW Beetle will cease in 2019.

Since the beginning of production, the Volkswagen Beetle has been world renowned for its ergonomic design, curved body and round headlights. Following a decline in sales, Volkswagen have confirmed that manufacturing of the Beetle will cease in 2019 after the release of two special edition models.

These are the celebrationary Edition Models. Image obtained from VW Media.

These 3rd generation coupe and convertible bugs will be released in two brand new hues, beige and blue, in addition to the standard colour collection. 

‘The people’s car’ has become iconic within its 70 years of production despite its Nazi roots. Sales peaked in the 1960’s when it became the biggest selling foreign car on the US market- a response to the 1968 Disney movie ‘The Love Bug’ featuring the autonomous and loveable ‘Herbie’.

The love bug Herbie takes on the racing competition.

The Beetle has only gone through two full redesigns during its lifetime, yet the original shape embodies the essence and true character of this Bug.  The value of the first-generation Beetle is expected to increase, especially if they have original features like the split screen.

The firm’s chief US executive Hinrich Woebcken captured fanatics devastation of the news in his comment “The loss of the Beetle will evoke a host of emotions from the Beetle’s many devoted fans.” However, he then sparked hope when he revealed “I would never say never” to resurrecting the Beetle again. Enthusiasts around the world are wondering the same thing -Is this truly the end for the Volkswagen Beetle?

The priority for Volkswagen at the moment is to concentrate on developing, manufacturing and producing electric vehicles in an attempt to fulfil their green initiative.

We cannot know for sure if this is the end of the Beetle, but we can admire its quirky charm.

Please share what your favourite memories of the VW Beetle is on our Social Media pages: @Chatsbrook. 

For more information on our products and services, contact 01603 733500 or email info@chatsbrook.co.uk today.