CRM in real estate agencies

So, for real estate agencies it is possible to select two main types of clients: sellers of objects and their buyers.

Sellers are meant as owners of apartments, cottages, land plots, etc. It can be as the large companies builders, investors, mutual investment funds, and individuals. Such clients address to the agency behind services in sale or leasing of their real estate.

Buyers are the individuals or the organizations wishing to purchase or rent a real estate using services of the agency.

Any real estate agency cannot exist without both customer groups therefore it is important to support a high customer loyalty of each group and to create with them long-term and strong relationship. As we know, the satisfaction of his current and future demands is the key to such relations with the client, and for achievement of this purpose the agency should know as much as possible about the clients. Process of collecting, processing and the analysis of similar information can seem quite labor-consuming, and special customer relationship management systems (CRM system) are developed for its automation.

To show how effective use of CRM systems in real estate agencies is, at first we will define the main stages of work of the agency and standard problems which are regularly arising at employees in the course of their activity. Then we will consider how automation of the front office, for example, based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps to build strong customer relations and at the same time in a complex to facilitate work of all staff of the agency anyway involved in sales process.

The basic process of work of the agency can be subdivided into four stages. On each of them before the staff of the agency there are tasks at which solution there are typical difficulties.

Involvement of suppliers. To begin work, the agency needs to create the directory of the real estate, i.e. to involve sellers. The main objectives of employees at this stage are:

• constant control of a situation in the real estate market for the purpose of search of potential suppliers;
• telemarketing of potential suppliers;
• assessment of prospects and legality of the project different divisions;
• approval of conditions of the new project with suppliers;
• signing of the contracts with suppliers.

The most part of transactions is lost on the first step as information detected by employees is not stored on a centralized basis, forgotten and lost. Then there are delays at a project evaluation stage as for exact assessment the staff of different divisions needs a huge number of documents. They are stored in different places, transferred between employees, often not a complete packet or irrelevant versions. As a result this stage can drag on for big term that, certainly, is not pleasant to the seller. For the same reasons also the term of approval of conditions of the new project can increase.

According to such separate data the management cannot carry out efficiency analysis of work of department and create the forecast for the next periods.

Preparation of the directory of the real estate. Right after signing of the contract before the agency there is a problem of preparation of information on new objects for sellers, i.e. adding of new positions in the directory. This task is not so simple as it seems at first sight. The matter is that the simple table with the list of characteristics of objects is not enough. For the client such set of characteristics is not informative, he needs visual representations of objects, for example floor-by-floor plans of houses. Search in lists as from his point of view it is important to understand instantly in what status of sale there is an object and to what investor it belongs is inconvenient for the seller. For this purpose sellers use "checkerwork" – the schematical plan of the house in which the statuses of sale and accessory to investors are marked in different flowers. The main problem is that formation and permanent updating of "checkerwork" – very labor-consuming task requiring special attention of employees. Especially sharply the problem of updating of the directory rises before the large agencies which have many employees at several remote offices.

Besides, sellers regularly make updating of the prices which should become effective in a certain day. At the same time to the employee responsible for price lists, it is necessary to monitor constantly a real estate on which the term of armor or reserve comes to an end and to update the prices on them.

Implementation of a real estate. When the directory of objects is ready, sales process of a real estate to buyers begins. The main objectives standing on this stage before employees are:

• fixation of all primary customer appeals;
• operational selection of a real estate for the client according to his requirements;
• representation of a real estate and saving the results of these demonstrations;
• armoring of a real estate and control of an adherence to deadlines;
• approval of special terms of transaction of the supplier (discounts, payment by installments, etc.);
• reservation of a real estate and control of an adherence to deadlines;
• signing of the contract with the client.

In implementation process of a real estate the staff of the agency interacts with participants of both customer groups.

From the point of view of the buyer, the agency should pick up quickly to it the option which is most meeting its requirements and then to provide successful carrying out the transaction. Besides, it should guarantee to the buyer lack of pads during the armoring and reservation of the object which was pleasant to it. This need of the client is caused by feature of the goods offered by real estate agencies. Each object is unique, and the client is interested in acquisition of specific unit, but not an object in principle. In addition the price of goods is high and the client makes the decision on purchase of a real estate is not momentary. Therefore it is very important to provide it a period of time for assessment of the offered option and to guarantee that for this time the real estate will remain behind it.

From the point of view of the seller, the adherence to deadlines of armoring and reservation, but already for other reason is also important. For the period of armor and a reserve objects are actually temporarily withdrawn from sale, and the potential client does not guarantee purchase yet. Thus, at this time the seller can miss sales opportunity of an object to other client.

For the specified reasons control of an adherence to deadlines of armoring and reservation has essential value for the relations both with the seller, and with the buyer. If this procedure is not automated, then the probability of an error is very high. At this stage there can be a failure which will lead to double sale of one object: the employee will not update data after armoring in time, and other employee, including an object free, will carry out on it the transaction with other client.

In implementation process there is one more problem. The staff of the agency stores information on clients and transactions in separate files, and sometimes and in the daily logs. As a result the absence of the employee in a workplace is identical to null information on his clients and transactions. The temporary absence of such seller can cost the companies of several transactions, and his dismissal will cause loss of all his clients, i.e. huge losses for the agency. This method of information storage also completely excludes a possibility of the analysis of sales on last periods and formations of forecasts for the future.

Aftersales service of clients. For formation of the strong relations with the client and also job evaluations of staff of the agency it is important to continue work with the client and after signing of the contract. The staff of the agencies quite often neglects these components of work. As a result the agency loses clients, so, and loses in profit. They should fill out questionnaires in which degree of satisfaction of requests of clients is reflected and to carry out the analysis of these questionnaires, to inform clients on the course of construction of the objects purchased by them, to create target marketing lists and to wage the directed marketing campaigns.

CRM system in the agencies nedvizhimostirassmotry in more detail, on the example of the solution Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a question of how the CRM system allows to automate all described stages of work of the agency and that the most important, to solve key problems on each of them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM gives to the agency following features:

• a common information space for all his employees involved in sales process;
• process automation of interaction with both customer groups of the agency (both potential, and real);
• tracking of customer interactions from the first address before signing of the contract and post-sale work;
• tracking and control of stages of transactions;
• maintaining the multilevel directory of a real estate taking into account the statuses of sale of objects and their accessory to investors;
• reduction of time expenditure for 75% when forming the directory of the real estate, including due to automatic formation of "checkerwork";
• decrease in time expenditure of managers at selection of options of objects for clients twice;
• control of an adherence to deadlines of armoring and reservation;
• control and interchangeability of work of sales managers;
• analysis of activities of the agency for different cuts, including efficiency analysis of work of managers;
• motivation of personnel on the basis of planned and actual targets of sales;
• information support of holding marketing campaigns for increase in a customer loyalty;
• control of timely introduction of payments by integration of the CRM system with the systems of accounting that lowers receivables by 5-10%;
• saving of time of employees on sales at document creation for 35% due to automatic formation of standard agreements by filling of templates with data from system cards.

The provided list includes only a part of functionality of the CRM system which will help real estate agency not only to construct strong customer relations, but also to reduce runtime of routine transactions by employees. Besides, thanks to ample opportunities of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM setup can consider specific features of each real estate agency and adapt under its specifics of work with clients.