12 Ways to Increase Your Real Estate Agency's Efficiency

As many aspects of the real estate sales journey become more complex than ever, the question we often hear is "Who will do this work?" However, when the question becomes "How will this work be done?" the answer lies with better processes and automation.

It's very common to think of automation in terms of real estate marketing automation alone, but there are much bigger gains to be had in the real estate sector by automating elements of the entire customer journey, covering business operations, as well as sales and marketing.

Automation can be applied to leads and listings and how they interact with the processes that take place along the sales journey: from marketing and capturing an initial lead to the final sale, and almost everything in between, including inventory management, task management, team support and CRM.

There are 12 areas of the real estate customer experience that will benefit from automation and should form the basis of an agency's blueprint:

1. Mobile-first

Create a new listing on location in just a few swipes directly from your phone and save valuable time. Eliminate the need to enter information multiple times.

2. Matching

Property listings can be matched with leads automatically, saving time and improving your success rate.

3. Agency website

Publish listings directly to your responsive agency website and be the first to show it to your customers.

4. Lead capture and management

Capture leads anywhere — from Facebook campaigns, chat app or even your email inbox — to make sure you never miss anyone. Ensure your contacts are always up-to-date. Follow up on your leads and interact with buyers and sellers while on the move.

5. Visits and open houses

Let your customers schedule viewings or visits whenever it suits them, and automatically add an appointment to their calendar (as well as yours). Automatically notify your leads with an email containing all the useful details. Send SMS or email reminders to minimise no-shows.

6. Direct marketing

Enter leads once, and update information automatically in your subscription and campaign lists across popular email marketing and lead nurturing tools.

7. Communication

Talk to millennials the way they prefer through online chat, SMS and social media, and interact with your team about a new listing, contact or business strategy while they're on the move.

8. Document management

Leave your client with a positive customer experience by smoothly completing the sales journey with automatic document and form creation – e.g., Docusign.

9. Task management

Smarten up your daily business processes with automatic to do lists, shareable notes, automatic reminders and other business processes tailored to your agency's workflows using your preferred task management tool. To save even more time, automatically include relevant information on leads, listings or contacts.

10. CRM

Automatically update your leads data and contact information in your CRM.

11. Workspace automation

Using technology such as SweepBright you can access the world's best apps through middleware firm Zapier and create your own perfect workspace, accessible on your mobile.

12. Publishing listings online

Publish your listing to a range of real estate portals, social media & your own agency website with a single click.

To view the original article, visit the SweepBright blog.