In a small community, where most moves are local, you can't risk your reputation by having unreturned phone calls or unanswered appointment requests. Mobile apps now let you respond quickly, remember what was said, and then let you resume what you were doing without missing a beat. There are very good and inexpensive tools to manage and route these activities among team members to ensure prompt response – and there are pay for lead programs that can keep you and your team busy all year to keep your systems humming – making sure you stay on target to hit your goal.

How ready are internet leads?

Where is the consumer in their life cycle? While it is good business to follow-up with all inquiries – at this time of year the demand seems to be for leads where the consumer is past the research phase and already has a house in mind. If your source of leads is funneling in lots of folks who are just curious about the state of the market, these browsers can convert, but this requires that your agents use good Customer Relationship Practices. Instead of a drip marketing campaign that only sends emails without something personal on the sending end that will fall flat. We train with FiveStreet® to respond to leads even when you are busy with another client and Top Producer® to follow-up and manage your longer term relationships with long term prospects and past clients.

Do you always answer the phone?

Phone leads are great – there is no scrambling to get back to the customer and if done well an appointment or next step can be produced in a single action. But if you don't have a system in place for sending a personal text when you are busy or capturing the lead on your cell phone when on the go, the results can be devastating. When we tested what happens when a consumer reaches voice mail only 30% left a message. In these cases, we would recommend looking into upgrading into a system that manages the leads the way FiveStreet® does it.

Over the past year, realtor.com® has been engaging agents, brokers and technology companies to see who has 'cracked the code" on reaching customers in the first critical minutes and how to nurture the ones that do not close today. Learn what technologies, techniques and tools help agents do this. Watch video >