Agents who use contact management software offered by Real Estate Web Solutions can now import leads directly from Zillow, making it easier for them to access and manage prospective clients and eliminating errors associated with “email parsing.”
“Our approach eliminates the incidence of lost or missed leads due to antiquated notification methods broadly used in the industry,” said George Toumbalakis, co-owner of Real Estate Web Solutions, in a statement.
Zillow says Real Estate Web Solutions’ customer relationship management system, realOMS, is the first broker-level customer relationship management system to integrate with Zillow through Zillow Tech Connect: Leads.
Zillow debuted Zillow Tech Connect in 2013 to allow real estate software providers to synchronize their products with Zillow. It later expanded the program into two separate branches — Zillow Tech Connect: Leads, and Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews.
Zillow Tech Connect: Leads allows technology companies to create a more seamless experience for the brokers and agents who use Zillow as a key component of their marketing efforts.
Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews, which debuted in late 2014, lets agents display Zillow reviews on their websites.
Integrating with Zillow benefits customer relationship management systems by eliminating errors associated with email parsing.
CRMs use email parsing to isolate information on leads — such as name, email and phone number — in emails sent to an email address assigned by the CRM to an agent or broker, and then inject that information into the agent or broker’s contact database, according to Justin Tracy, CEO of Kunversion, another real estate software provider.
“The downside is sometimes [email parsing] picks up the wrong info, like if there are few phone numbers or emails in the notification, and it takes a few minutes to get the email so it’s not instant,” he said. “It’s maybe two or three minutes less than instant.”
Like Real Estate Web Solutions, Kunversion has integrated with Zillow under Zillow Tech Connect, so it no longer has to parse emails for lead information.
But the firm still has to use the technique to import leads from all other sources that deliver leads to real estate agents’ inboxes.
Other providers of broker-level customer relationship management systems have teamed up with Zillow to pull in leads from the listing portal under Zillow Tech Connect, including BoomTown and Kunversion.
St. Louis, Missouri-based Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Select Properties and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Advantage are the first brokerages to implement realOMS through Zillow Tech Connect: Leads, according to Zillow.
More than 630 agents now rely on realOMS to deliver leads from Zillow, the listing portal said.