A real estate CRM system is a customer relationship management software. Some agents may use real estate CRM software to manage clients. While others may view a CRM as a process involving strategy, systems, and software to nurture and convert leads into clients.
Nearly every successful real estate agent uses some type of residential or commercial real estate CRM to support and grow their business. Consider these key benefits to using a CRM for your real estate business.
Keep All Your Information and Contacts in One Central Location
Successful agents have several lead generation sources. As you gather contacts from social media, direct mail campaigns, online advertising, and others, individual databases for each lead generation source is inefficient.
With a real estate CRM software, your contacts from various sources can be collected and consolidated in one central location. Easily organize and access the data on your desktop, tablet, or smartphone anywhere you go.
Respond Immediately to Inquiries
Fast responses to online inquiries are critical to a successful conversion. Many CRMs offer an automated feature to deploy a response immediately.
Your auto-response doesn’t have to be something impersonal and canned such as, “Thanks for contacting us. We’ll be in touch shortly.” It can be customized and personal while sharing the facts, “I’m currently with clients but wanted you to know I received your message. My team is working on your inquiry. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have a free moment.”
Keep in Touch with Clients
A good real estate CRM system isn’t just for cultivating new leads, it’s also for keeping in touch with your past clients. The 2015 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers stated 88% of homebuyers said they would use their agent again or recommend them to others. While people don’t buy homes every day, they may buy again in a couple years and you don’t want them to forget you.
Keep in touch with mailings, newsletters, and other “touches” throughout the year. A real estate CRM system can keep track of your touch points including client birthdays and anniversaries.
Personalize Your Business and Services
The more information you can gather about your clients, such as their preferences for types of homes, neighborhoods, price range, and number of bedrooms, the more you can personalize your services. By having this information available, you can pinpoint your emails to send new home ideas with features they love. They may not be ready to buy yet, but your attention to detail will only increase your chances of gaining their business when they are ready.
Automate Your Tasks
Combine a personal touch with the ease of automation. If you want to send your clients an email for their “home buying anniversary,” you can search for clients with an anniversary that day. All you need to do is write an email and program your CRM to send it on the anniversary date. Emails can be set up quarterly and the CRM can do all the hard work for you.
Instant Data Tells You What’s Working…Or Not
Are your mailers gaining any traction? Do clients ever open your emails or newsletters? You could keep doing a task and hope it’s working, or you can start tracking your response rate to know what does and doesn’t work. A good residential or commercial real estate CRM will tell you how many people actually opened your email and click-through rates on links.
Experiment with different subject lines and calls to action. Focus on what works and ignore the rest. With the Referral Maker CRM, you can measure your efforts to know what’s really effective.
