As demands on time and talent continues to change, agents and brokers today are looking for new and creative ways to become more efficient and gain a competitive advantage in their market.
Realsuite, which offers a business solutions platform for real estate professionals that underscores the importance of finding the right balance between personalization and automation in serving today’s clients, has released a white paper titled Shift Happens: How to capture, communicate and close in today’s “on demand” world.
Realsuite puts today’s best practices under the microscope, revealing new perspective around buyer and seller expectations at each stage in the journey. It also uncovers stark realities about some of the most common practices within the customer lifecycle, making the case that business-as-usual in today’s market is anything but.
The survey finds that only 14 percent of consumers are likely to respond to a communication they perceive to be an automated reply.
Moreover, three of the top five qualifiers consumers use when selecting an agent cannot be replaced by technology.
Our clients also want more transparency every step of the way, and three out of four buyers want an online system to track the offer-to-close process.
As agents, our insider knowledge such as upcoming assessments, HOA fees and neighborhood detail is just as critical to buyers as pricing trends, recent sales and days on market.
“This is a critical time for real estate professionals,” said Luke Glass, executive vice president, industry platforms for Move, which also operates leading online real estate destination realtor.com® under a perpetual license from the National Association of Realtors®. “The emergence of technology and automation onto the scene has greatly improved the real estate process in some ways, yet these findings reveal that many agents are failing to leverage technology or to use it properly at key points along the journey, to the detriment of the agent-client relationship.”
For agents and brokers, the results of the survey also underscore the importance that personal knowledge and touch are still an irreplaceable part of the real estate process.
Glass added that the survey also makes a case for incorporating technology with personalized service, in order to meet the bar of consumer expectation and deliver optimal value.
“Finding the right balance between automation and personalization is critical to an agent’s ability to deliver an exceptional experience, yield more closed business and bring more repeat and referral business into the pipeline,” he said.
To download the white paper, visit www.realsuite.io/research.
