There’s been a lot of talk about technology disrupting the real estate industry. So much so that the amount of chatter starts to blend together. Will agents survive the influx of technology? Is the traditional brokerage model going away? How much technology is too much? Tech-enabled agent or agent-enabled tech?
Put all of the “technology noise” aside and take a moment to look at what real estate is really built upon: relationships. That’ something technology shouldn’t replace, but enhance.
While many industries have jumped on board with digitization, AI, robotics, etc., real estate remains (and should remain) a relationship-based, service-oriented industry focused on connecting people with the property of their dreams. It almost seems that this fundamental perspective, the ability to create personal relationships, has become lost in the abundance of software options to choose from.
Find your purpose: providing excellent service
At Propertybase, we commonly ask: how do you know what platforms or software you need to effectively run your business? One way to determine this is to look at your “cost of disconnectivity.”
Whether due to an abundance of spreadsheets, software systems that lack integrations, lost data or poor internal communications, the cost of disconnectivity impacts how well a business can run, and how well relationships (i.e. the consumer experience) can be built.
What does this disconnection look like and how might it affect the ability of brokerages, teams or agents to do their job? In our experience, we’ve found that only an estimated 50% of an agent’s time will be spent actually selling real estate. A 2016 survey by HubSpot found that 82% of respondents lost hours a week due to managing different technologies; plus, 72% of salespeople spent up to an hour a day on mundane manual data entry.
For “disconnected” real estate agents, their valuable time will also be spent on:
- Repetitive digital tasks
- Manual data entry
- Research and information collection
- Trainings and application management
The cost of this disconnectivity can be shocking. Is your brokerage only benefiting from 50% of your agent’s time each month on revenue-generating activities? Are they providing the best customer service and experience possible?
Find proper alignment for business and personal optimization
So what’s the solution to making sure your business is properly aligned? Connect it with a single platform that bridges the gap between the brokerage and agents. You’ll establish Business Process Optimizations (BPO) and Personal Process Optimizations (PPO) in a single hub that also benefits the customer.
Embracing proper technology into your business can ultimately yield:
- Better managerial process and business insights (BPO).
- Optimal agent processes, streamlining personal workload and creating a better work-life balance (PPO).
- Utilizing a platform that is not only scalable, but configurable with an open API, integrations, data control, etc., allowing the company to provide exceptional customer experiences.
Think about where your business might be in two, three, or five years from now. In order to not only survive, but thrive in the changing landscape of real estate, step back for a moment from the abundance of technologies and feature lists. Embrace a real estate CRM and marketing partner that enhances your ability to stay relevant in front of clients and customers, collaborate more effectively with your data, foster better relationships with effortless, repeatable processes, and future-proof your business for growth.
The Propertybase Real Estate CRM & Marketing platform connects real estate businesses around the globe with scalable technology, creating repeatable, streamlined processes freeing your team to close more deals. To learn how you can tackle the cost of disconnectivity, download our White Paper, Navigating the Evolving Real Estate Landscape.