Good customer relationships are crucial in every industry, and real estate is no exception. However, maintaining a good relationship can only be achieved through consistent effort and a personalised experience, no matter where the customer is in the sales process.
And only a solid customer relationship management (CRM) strategy can help companies build strong connections, including collecting customer data and analysing customer behaviour to deliver better services and increase sales.
The real estate industry is going through a transition and investing in a CRM is becoming a must for them. But how does this tool work and what can it bring to your real estate?
CRM for real estate: what is it?
A real estate CRM is a software package that helps real estate agents and brokers manage their relationships with clients. With a real estate CRM you can improve lead acquisition, automate workflow, improve tracking, manage campaigns, improve employee productivity, and improve process management and collections.
This software has been created with the aim of addressing all the challenges of today's real estate companies:
- Customers and owners who want immediate answers to their queries.
- Agents who are constantly on the move and need a cloud-based software solution.
- Agents who want to stay in touch with former clients to boost and maintain their relationships.
- Agents who need to quickly identify how the market is moving without resorting to old Excel spreadsheets.
In real estate, agents are involved in a heavy workload on a daily basis, and there's never a shortage of problems. Anything that reduces stress and makes their lives more productive is a plus.
CRMs designed for the real estate industry have specifically eliminated the problems that real estate companies face on a daily basis, and offer a unique solution to completely transform the relationship with their customers.
Features of a real estate CRM
Some of the features that a real estate CRM should have are:
Real estate CRMs should have integrated modules for automated publishing on different real estate portals, thus reducing the time it takes to list a property on different platforms. This means that more leads can be captured with the same effort.
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Agreement management
All CRM software for real estate should have a deal tracking function. This function includes guidelines that allow the system to move from the initial to the final stages of the sales cycle. Information about each deal is stored in the system so that agents can easily access it and make informed decisions.
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Reporting and dashboards
To make informed decisions, it is important to have a visual representation of activities. The CRM should have a dashboard and reporting function with revenue metrics grouped by zone, agent and property activity. The reporting and dashboard function will help stakeholders identify effective marketing strategies and campaigns and predict results.
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Real-time communication
The integration of chat or click-to-call options can facilitate communication between buyers and sellers, as customer satisfaction depends on the service a company can provide. It will also help real estate agents to conduct online auctions, video calls, etc; and enable them to respond quickly to customer request, give advice and even share documents.
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Multi-channel sales
To reach different markets or offer different services, you must have a multi-channel sales function. In addition to offering independent appraisals of the value of the property, real estate agencies can assist in home buying and selling operations and provide consultancy services. The multi-channel CRM manager can be of great help in this case, as it allows you to integrate different ecosystems to complete sales scenarios.
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Document flow automation
If you want to get rid of a large volume of paperwork and reduce the time needed to create, approve or share the document, thanks to the real estate CRM, you can add a document flow automation module for these tasks. By adding a pre-designed document template, it will be easier to share in the system.
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Integration with other tools
A CRM system should integrate effectively with third party products, such as MailChimp, Google products or other applications, to attract an audience that has worked with these tools before.
Advantages of a real estate CRM
Having defined what a real estate CRM is and the functionalities it should have, let's move on to the juiciest part: all the advantages of having a CRM in your real estate company.
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Efficient lead management
Today's customers expect quick responses from companies and their brands (more than 88% of customers expect a response in less than an hour), but achieving this goal becomes difficult when all leads are scattered across multiple platforms: real estate portals, social media, exhibitions, your website, ... A CRM software stores all the details of these leads in a single, secure location.
This allows your staff to respond to leads quickly and easily.
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Transparency of information
CRM tools allow you to have conversations through your customers' preferred means of communication: email, SMS and even WhatsApp.
They also store the details of conversations between these customers and employees, ensuring transparency of information shared with customers and reducing duplication of data between departments, as they don't have to fill in the same data in different programs over and over again.
A real estate CRM is therefore crucial to improve transparency and speed of communication within your organisation.
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Creating drip campaigns
With the amount of choice customers have today, it is difficult to get them to buy immediately. Trust is a huge factor in customers making their final decision. This trust arises when customers believe that sellers have their best interests at heart.
To add value to customers' lives, it is important to leverage the tools of a CRM and create drip campaigns to send automated emails and messages to prospects and customers. These messages could include tips on home maintenance, preparing for weather changes, information on the latest offers, and more.
CRM tools also allow agents to identify which marketing campaigns are effective and which are not, so they can continue with the strategies that are working and avoid pursuing those that are not delivering optimal results.
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Improved tracking
Simply sending drip messages and running marketing campaigns is not enough to convince customers to make a purchase from your company. Your employees need to follow up regularly and promptly to bring customers closer to the final step - signing the deal.
CRM tools allow salespeople to set reminders to follow up with prospects and store the details of their conversations, making follow-up more efficient and effective, which in turn translates into improved sales figures.
A CRM not only allows your staff to better track leads, but also helps managers to analyse the efforts of the sales team and take action to make improvements where necessary.
- Improve employee productivity
Between meeting with agents, showing sample flats to potential customers and performing many other office tasks, your employees don't have time to sit in front of a computer and make entries in a CRM.
That's why today's CRM tools work on most mobile and portable devices and are cloud-based, meaning employees have full access to CRM software on the go, wherever they are.
This in turn translates into greater convenience for your employees and leads to increased productivity.
- Track the entire workflow
As Peter Drucker once said, "what gets measured gets managed", so when companies track and measure progress at every stage of the buyer cycle, they better manage their business to satisfy customers and comply with regulations.
From creating projects with details such as saleable area, base rate, etc., to defining payment schedules, assigning leads, conducting site visits, offering financing plans, signing the deal and managing repossessions, a CRM tool allows real estate companies to track every step. This not only ensures that managers are kept up to date with the latest developments in their business, but also holds all staff accountable.
