It’s a tough real estate market these days. Tough on people who want to buy a home and tough on people who are trying to sell theirs. But it may be toughest of all on real estate agents and their companies who are trying to move properties and the people who want to sell them or live in them. There are far too many people who think they can sell real estate for the market to support. The natural selection process weeds out many of the low performers, but all that does is make the ones who remain a little stronger and a lot hungrier for business.
The challenge for a real estate professional in today’s real estate marketplace is to be good and fast at the same time. They also must have tools and techniques to maintain their current customer base and to attract new business to add to their portfolio. That’s why many of them use a variety of methods and media to get their message out and bring buyers and sellers in. To help them do that most have also adopted a more formal plan that incorporates a real estate Customer Relationship Management system, or CRM for short.
1. What is real estate CRM?
The real estate CRM is a form of customer management software that has been specifically designed for real estate professionals. That means it directly relates to their work and the common terms they use so it can help them do their job better. All real estate CRM programs have a few common features and qualities that are common to all customer management companies. They might include an initial contact management system and an email autoresponder.
Both of these will allow individual real estate agents to get in in touch with and nurture their relationship with leads and current clients. It will also help them to market to returning or potentially returning clients.
2. What are the benefits of using real estate CRM?
There are very real and tangible benefits for real estate professionals who work with real estate customer relationship management systems. Real estate CRM is a computerized system that helps them to not just manage their business relationships, but to organize all of the associated data and information as well. This might include storing client, customer and prospect contact information as well as current accounts, leads and sales opportunities all in one location. This gives them the ability to access and manipulate this information to meet their real estate business goals.
You can also share this information and these resources across a company or real estate agency. Individual real estate agents can then build on each other’s efforts and have mutual success. These CRM systems for real estate also gather basic information like contact profiles, and give an added value of automated reminders and additional ways to generate more leads and possibilities real estate sales and opportunities.
3. How real estate CRM works
CRM real estate software packages start with a lead capture website. This website offers visitors a gift or token in return for their email or other contact information. It might be a free report like as a digital download, an e-book on the local real estate market, or access to an MLS home search tool in their area.
Once the contact has been made, the CRM software will notify the real estate agent so they can follow up. That might be an email drip that seeks to keep the contact engaged until an agent can make a telephone call, or a series of emails that are pre-written and automated to be sent over a short period of time. After this, the real estate agent can call or visit with the contact and convert them to a lead for sales now, or a reference for others later.
