The real estate industry is growing with leaps and bounds. And if you want to reap the benefits, you cannot escape implementing top-notch Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. CRM system helps you in multiple ways. It collects necessary customer information such as name, email id, address, and company name. You can also program the real estate CRM to collect advanced information such as the following:
a. Geographic details
b. Demographic details
c. Psychographic details
d. Behavioral details
e. Buying patterns
f. Recent purchases
When you have multiple data points, you can segment customers and brainstorm effective strategies. The real estate industry is wholly dependent upon customers because they are ultimately going to buy properties. So you must build a relationship of trust with them. A real estate CRM software will help you do just that. It will provide a 360-degree view of the customer’s real challenges and also suggest solutions. Moreover, it will also closely monitor market dynamics to base your decisions on data instead of rumors and emotions.
Do you know that acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than retaining the existing ones? If you are looking to form robust and long-lasting relationships with your clients, then implement a real estate CRM system today.
The following statistics show that customers are interested in real estate dealers who implement real estate CRM systems.
a. Real estate CRM software increases sales accuracy by 42% and sales productivity by 34%.
b. Real estate CRM systems shorten the sales cycle in the range of 8% to 14%.
c. It grows the conversion cycle by 300%.
But even though the CRM software delivers proven results, about 30% of real estate agents aren’t using them. It means at least one-third of real estate agents aren’t getting any CRM benefits and are therefore lagging behind their competitors.
Now that you have learned the importance of CRM software and how it can help boost your company’s productivity, let’s check out the 4 key features of a good real estate CRM.
1. The best real estate CRM offers you exactly what you need.
When searching for the best real estate CRM system for your company, keep in mind your specific challenges. Please make a list of the business problems you come across daily and find a real estate CRM system specially built to provide solutions for them. A word of caution here. Many companies shy away from doing a detailed analysis of their problems. Instead, they focus more on their competitor’s issues and ultimately select the wrong CRM software. So firstly, it’s essential to pay attention to your specific challenges.
Secondly, check the adoption rate of the CRM software. The higher the adoption rate, the easier it will be for your employees to use it. Aim for a 100% adoption rate. But the higher, the better it is. Take a bottom-up approach so that you know the challenges employees — frontline executives, C suite managers — are facing. This analysis will provide you a real picture of what kind of CRM software you need.
2. Compatible on most networks
There are many kinds of real estate CRM systems available in the market. As a wise real estate agent, you should compare all of them before making the final decision.
While comparing, check whether you are looking for on-premise CRM software or an on-cloud CRM system. On-premise CRM software will be hosted in your company’s network, whereas the third-party vendor’s network will host the on-cloud CRM system. The following tables provide the advantages and disadvantages of on-premise and on-cloud CRM systems.
A. On-Premise CRM software
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| 1. You have complete control over your personal data. You can decide what upgrades and customizations you want and when you want them. | 1. Users will have to be present inside the company to use the real estate CRM software. They cannot use it while they are at the client’s place. |
| 2. There are no data security issues because business-critical data is hosted on your company’s private server instead of a third party server. | 2. On-premise CRM software takes a lot of time to upgrade and customizations are expensive. |
| 3. Many CRM vendors charge based on the number of customers you have. So if you have an extensive customer database, you will save money by implementing an on-premise CRM system. | 3. Maintenance cost for an on-premise CRM software is higher than an on-cloud CRM software. |
B. On-cloud CRM software
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| 1. Since the real estate CRM software is hosted in the third-party vendor’s network. You don’t have to pay the server-maintenance fee. | 1. You don’t have complete control over business-critical information because it’s hosted on a third-party server. |
| 2. Upgradations and customizations take significantly less time as compared to on-premise CRM systems. | 2. If a system downtime occurs, it may take a long time to get repaired and may halt your daily business activities. |
| 3. On-cloud CRM systems allow everyone to use the software at any time and from any place. | 3. If you don’t have an in-house IT team, you will have to ask for the vendor’s support for even small issues. |
3. Excellent data collection and reporting function
The primary reason for employing a real estate CRM system is to get crucial insights about customers, employees, competitors, and the market in general. The more data you have, the better decisions you will make. The best real estate CRM software will help you create a customer persona that will enable you to identify your ideal target segment. As described in the opening paragraph, the best real estate CRM software will provide you with the necessary details — geographic, demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and many other parameters.
Business analytics is an essential feature of the best real estate CRM software as it provides critical data about the following:
a. Actual versus estimated sales pipeline
b. The total monetary worth of the sales pipeline
c. Average order completion time
d. Automatically assigns a client to a particular team
e. Monitors the team’s efficiency in serving the client.
f. Sends detailed employee performance reports to the manager and also suggests course-correction strategies.
Overall, the best real estate CRM software will help your company improve the decision-making process by basing your decisions on data instead of emotions.
4. Allows you to do tasks quickly and easily.
The best real estate CRM software will help you finish tasks quickly and easily. So before making the final purchase decision, check whether the CRM system is compatible with the applications and software you already use daily. Compatibility is an important attribute that can cause a significant problem later if you don’t pay heed to it.
Before implementing the best real estate CRM software, ask the vendor to provide the free version for at least 7 days. Here is a list of attributes that you should check during the free trial version:
a. Populate the real estate CRM software with accurate data and check the performance.
b. Check the real estate CRM software’s online support services and see whether you are getting the required help.
c. Inspect whether the user interface is intuitive and easy-to-use.
d. Collect feedback from all your team members after the 7 day free trial has ended and then take the final purchase decision based on that.
Conclusion
The real-estate CRM software can significantly help you get more customer-centric information and gain better market knowledge. It also enables you to form a robust and long-lasting relationship with your clients. You can collect essential feedback and take corrective action on it. Now that you have gone through the entire article don’t forget to ask the vendor the right questions before purchasing the best real estate CRM software.
