In California’s Orange County, real estate agents banging their heads over jammed printers, buggy computers and glitchy smartphones can now get free assistance from a tech support service owned by Florida’s statewide Realtor association.
The Orange County Association of Realtors (OCAR) has made Tech Helpline, touted as “the real estate industry’s no. 1 tech support service,” a member benefit to OCAR’s more than 13,600 members.
They join nearly 400,000 other Realtors throughout the U.S. and Canada that have access to Tech Helpline, according to the service.
“If an agent is in the middle of a transaction and a printer freezes, one phone call or a click of the mouse is all it now takes to get immediate help,”said OCAR President Rita Tayenaka in a statement.
Tech Helpline is thought of as “the Genius Bar for real estate staffed by a team of savvy tech advisors who specialize in supporting real estate agents and brokers,” said Tricia Stamper, director of technology products at Florida Realtors, referencing the tech-support station located in many Apple stores.
OCAR’s Tech Helpline member benefit includes:
- Unlimited calls
- No time limit per call
- The ability to ask multiple questions on different topics in a single call
- The ability for analysts to connect to a member’s computer to diagnose and repair (if needed)
- Assistance in English or Spanish
- Support from Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Tech Helpline offers technical support on Windows and Mac operating systems, smartphones, tablets and more than a dozen hardware products, including computers, monitors, printers, scanners and storage devices.
More than 70 Realtor associations, multiple listing services (MLSs) and real estate brokerages have signed up to offer Tech Helpline to their members and agents since the service first launched as a resource for Florida Realtors. Tech Helpline is owned and operated by Florida Realtors.
Tech Helpline also provides support for Form Simplicity, a real estate transaction management platform.