Why every real estate business needs a good CRM in 2023, A property purchase is possibly the single biggest investment most individuals make in their lifetime. While there are policies like RERA to safeguard buyers from unscrupulous developers, it is ultimately customer perception that really makes the difference in a buyer’s choice. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software enables real estate businesses—from developers to brokers—to take advantage of technology, get ahead of the competition, and increase sales.
CRMs have changed the game for businesses across industries, and the real estate sector is no different. From improving lead development to boosting customer satisfaction, a good CRM can do a lot for your business. It can help you understand your buyer’s needs, stay on top of changing trends, market your offerings and manage the process in a more streamlined way, and improve operational transparency. Here are some compelling reasons to invest in a robust CRM designed specifically for Real Estate.
1. Cohesive Marketing
A good CRM designed for Real Estate gives you better control of your marketing initiatives. Integration with communication channels like email, SMS, and WhatsApp allows users to create and send out hundreds of communiques at one go, from a centralized database.
As we mentioned earlier, trust is the number one factor influencing a buyer’s choice of developer. Your Real Estate CRM can help you build and sustain this trust through automated messages/emails to customers. Of course, a lot depends on the quality of your messaging; you could, for instance, create drip campaigns that automatically send out communications like tips on home decor, space optimization, legal niceties in home-buying, and more. You can create segmented groups, according to your offerings and buyer needs, and send out communications of specific interest to each category of customer. What’s more, using WhatsApp also allows you to track delivery and ‘read’ actions. Knowing what works and what doesn’t allows you to further refine your marketing and messaging.
2. Lead Management:
A CRM provides a centralized database where leads from diverse sources— real estate portals, social media, exhibitions, your website— are collectively stored. This avoids duplication and ensures a single source of truth that users can access to send out quick and accurate responses to customer needs. Leads can also be assigned to specific salespersons on a pre-determined rota. This way no enquiry goes unattended, visits can be scheduled and followed up on, and employee productivity can be measured and managed.
3. No Enquiry Goes Unattended
Focused marketing campaigns are good for lead generation. But this is just the first step in the buyer journey. You need to make the most of the leads your campaigns gather. And this means timely follow-up. CRMs built for the Real Estate industry are a great help in this area. From setting schedules for follow-up calls sales meetings or site visits to alerts and notifications to ensure you don’t miss any scheduled meetings, your CRM can actively help your employees improve the quality of their follow-ups, thus, bringing your prospect closer to the final step – i.e. making the sale.
A good Real Estate CRM also improves reporting and analytics, giving management a customizable dashboard to view the productivity of the sales team as well as individual employees and help them make improvements as needed.
4. Accuracy of Information
In addition to providing you with a single source of truth, Real Estate CRMs provide tools that allow you to respond to customers through multiple channels, including email, SMS, and even WhatsApp. Your CRM also stores information about customers, gleaned from various communications.
This information is accessible—depending on permissions—across the CRM and ensures transparency, and it also reduces duplication by automatically and accurately populating certain fields on different documentation. APIs have given CRM additional muscle, allowing extension of features, such as accounting, through integration with accounting packages like Tally. Such integration avoids data duplication, saves time and effort, and improves accuracy. So in addition to improving communication between your organization and customers, a good Real Estate CRM will also improve transparency and communication within your organization.
5. Anytime Access
Your salespeople are often out in the field, meeting channel partners, conducting site visits for prospects, etc. This makes it difficult for them to get into the office, open their computers and make entries into the CRM. The cloud has changed all that. Modern CRMs for Real Estate businesses now provide tools that give you full access to the CRM using connected devices, like tablets and smartphones. So, no matter where they are, they can access the CRM, get the information they need, and make updates in the CRM. This convenience automatically boosts productivity too.
6. Improved Productivity
We’ve already seen how a good Real Estate CRM improves marketing ROI. But it can also improve all-around productivity in your organization. The ability to automate routine workflows means your people can use the centralized database to create multiple documents from Sales Agreements to receipts and invoices. And it’s not just accurate but fast too. A good Real Estate CRM can generate over a hundred Demand letters in less than a minute. It can also auto-populate common fields in Sales Agreements, Payment Reminders, Progress Reports, etc. Through APIs, CRMs can further extend their feature list, adding capabilities, such as formatting (Word processor software), and despatch (email/ WhatsApp).
You can also create highly customized reports for a management view, and run analytics to measure the productivity of teams as well as individual sales employees. This allows business owners and stakeholders to stay abreast of the latest developments in the business, assign accountability, and take insightful decisions.
7. Customer Satisfaction
Modern Real Estate CRMs provide tools that enhance communication and interaction with customers and between your own teams. CRMs can provide real-time insights into customer behavior, allowing you to make better decisions, ultimately, leading to higher customer satisfaction.
In a Nutshell
CRM use is not a new development in business, but with newer technology coming to the fore—APIs, for instance, industries like the real estate sector, are seeing the benefits of using their CRM as more than just a database. From monitoring productivity to improving marketing ROI and enhancing operational efficiencies, modern CRMs designed for Real Estate players have the ability to take your business to a whole new level.
You can learn more about how a really good Real Estate CRM can speed up your business operations, here: https://bit.ly/3ujwSZj
