If you run a real estate business, a good CRM software will be a big help in attracting, managing, and retaining clients; streamlining transactions; and closing deals in a timely manner. Most people still do not know how powerful having a CRM software is. It offloads several tasks from you and reduces errors from manual handling of data. Note that using Excel spreadsheets, word documents, paper notepads, and sticky notes are not CRM systems. You need to have a legitimate database that can manage your contacts and improving your relationships with customers even when you’re out and about.
What is CRM?
A CRM software allows you to manage your real estate business seamlessly using one platform whenever and wherever you are. To put it simply, it is a system built to replace the old ways of capturing, storing, and managing your customers’ information. CRM platforms like Propertybase or Salesforce, for example, offer a variety of features. In general, what these systems do is help you manage your leads, track the progress of your campaigns, upload documents, manage contracts, manage your calendar, and provide you insights on the latest real estate trends. Real estate CRM software systems help agents to manage their businesses efficiently and productively, minimize time wasted time, and improve personalization of their customer communications.
Why you need a Real Estate CRM
1. Efficient Lead Management
Customers now begin their buying process by searching for listings online instead of driving around or reading newspapers to look for available properties. Technology has changed the real estate market. You probably manage your own website and social media accounts to keep up with the evolving search preferences of your customers. Say you are successful in driving them to your website and having them submit their contact information. What happens next? How do you manage these inbound leads? A real estate CRM makes it possible for you to make sure that your leads do not go to waste. Without a CRM, it will be nearly impossible for you to manage these new leads, ongoing tasks, listings, and pending transactions. You are also like to miss some steps and miss out on opportunities to connect with your potential clients if you don’t have a CRM software in place.
2. Better Data to Analyze
Once you have all these leads properly captured and stored, the challenge now is sorting through cold, lukewarm, and warm leads. It can be difficult to tell who among these inbound leads are of good quality from those who are just looking around with no intent to buy. A simple Excel sheet will not crunch the numbers for you. A CRM, on the other hand, can provide you with more data about your contact sources. It tells you which ones need more nurturing, which ones you should come back to, and which leads are already highly likely to make a purchase. A good CRM will guide you in lead nurturing so you can create relationships, assess the quality of your database, and be able to predict revenue.
3. Smart Automation
A good real estate CRM software platform should be able to help you beyond listing updates and sending email communications. The variables you need to consider when nurturing leads can be overwhelming. You will need to strategise who to send your emails to, what calls you need to make, what marketing materials go out by when, etc. At this point, you might just consider hiring an assistant already. The more tasks you need to remember, the less of it you can actually accomplish. Having real estate CRM that provides automation allow real estate agents like you to focus on more important tasks like nurturing your leads with targeted and personalized content to convert them into clients. A type of automation that goes beyond email sending will allow you to generate significant additional revenue and a good amount of ROI. Being able to automate repetitive tasks will save you a lot of time and money and make you the top of mind of your target audience.
4. Consistent and Simple Communications
Across any industry, one major problem that marketers face is to make their target customers respond to the communications they send. Majority of businesses today seem to have established basic email marketing and other direct to customer communications. As a result, customers can be drowned with so much promotional messages that they choose to not read them at all. A real estate CRM with pre-built scripts and templates can greatly help you reach out to customers consistently through simple and easy to understand messages.
5. Ability to Scale with Referrals
Most real estate agents will probably tell you that 95% of their business come from existing customers and referrals. If you are looking to further scale up your business, start by going back to your past clients. These people had first-hand experience of your service. And for industries like real estate, word of mouth goes a long way. If they were satisfied with how you helped them sell or buy a home before, they will most likely not have second thoughts in giving your name to their family, friends, or colleagues. One of the best ways to start doing this is if you have a good CRM with database of previous clients you can reach out to. It will help if you can look back on the transactions and deals you facilitated for them before you ask for referrals.
How to Choose a CRM for your Real Estate Business
Here are some of the things you need to consider before choosing a real estate CRM:
- Your business needs
- How long before you can implement it
- If it’s already compatible with or can be integrated to the tools you are currently using
- If it improves your productivity and efficiency
- If it includes reporting and insights function
Our team offers implementation, maintenance, and management of CRM software suites like Propertybase and Salesforce to fit your property needs. If you can’t financially justify or don’t believe certain skills are core to your business, our team can fill the gap and deliver the success you need. Click here Salesforce – Propertybase to learn more about how we work with several real estate businesses to seamlessly implement their very own CRM software. You may also send us a message below if you have any questions or if you’d like to schedule a consultation.