7 min readAmbitious real estate companies race ahead quickly, which often means neglecting process efficiencies. When technology and processes are put on the back burner, knowledge can get lost in messy documents, post-it notes, and people’s heads. The bigger the team, the bigger the problem.
All businesses are forced to streamline their way of working eventually – as productivity needs to improve. You might call it “going slow to go fast” – an efficient process is essential for growth. Once you trust your processes, you free up more time to do what you do best.
Creating maximum efficiency in your real estate business
1. Create standard operating procedures (SOP)
There’s a reason why coffee from Starbucks tastes the same no matter where you go. They have their processes mapped out perfectly. The beans, machines, roast temperature, cups – everything’s written down so anyone working there can replicate the process.
There are many customer touchpoints in real estate and poorly defined processes can invite error. Creating standard operating procedures reduces mistakes to help you achieve maximum efficiency.
Mapping out your services allows you to create a set of instructions for exactly what needs to happen and when. Once you’ve created SOPs, you can share them with your team. If at any time you find a better way of doing something, update the SOP.
2. Automate customer workflows in your CRM
Almost every real estate business uses a CRM, but few take full advantage of the powerful features they offer. CRMs can be daunting, so many people see them as a customer database and email marketing tool only. But once you’ve created SOPs, you can save time and hassle by building workflows in your CRM to action steps in the customer journey.
Create workflows for every service you offer to spend less time doing the same tasks repeatedly. And the best part? Customers get a better experience. They won’t be waiting around for a reply or miss out on a document/email that they were expecting. Automated workflows take care of the customer and only alert you when you are required.
If you are frustrated with a repetitive task, there might be an opportunity to automate it.
3. Use a 24/7 live answering service for real estate
The process of buying or renting a property can be stressful and clients are looking for answers around the clock. A 24/7 live answering service ensures you won’t miss a call again. Every caller will be welcomed by an agent who will guide them through your custom script.
A virtual reception service like SignMore can screen calls, qualify leads, and book appointments, all while keeping you up to date via a mobile app. This is a major step in streamlining your real estate business as you don’t have a backlog of voicemails and missed calls to catch up on.
4. Create an online knowledge hub
When looking to streamline your real estate business, providing information for existing clients is often overlooked. Client aftercare involves lots of communication with many repetitive tasks and questions. Much of the manual work can be reduced here.
Having an online knowledge hub can help answer many questions that your clients have. It is a professional touch that benefits all parties by centralizing key information and processes in one place. Creating valuable content for existing clients is a big step in streamlining your real estate business, and will help build your reputation too.
5. Use data to grow your real estate business
Data is your friend when it comes to streamlining your real estate business. Making time to zone in on the data metrics that matter gives you valuable insights to streamline your real estate business for maximum efficiency.
You can “work smarter, not harder” with data on your side. From discovering your most profitable customer segments to learning which blog post topics are generating the most leads, there’s so much to learn.
How to use data to streamline your real estate business
Define your goals
Looking at data without a goal in mind is a bad idea. It gets overwhelming, fast. Defining key objectives is the first step, so you can zoom in on the data that’s relevant.
Set SMART goals
Setting a quick goal that can’t be measured isn’t productive. Instead set a SMART goal – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. This could be to increase the number of closed residential property transactions in Q4 by 15% or boost property viewing requests sent via the website by 10% etc.
Collect & organize data
Depending on what your goal is, explore the relevant data – which could be customer information or market/financial records, for example.
Analyze
Look for patterns, trends, and customer behavior to help you see what you could change to help you achieve your SMART goal.
Make data-backed decisions
Now you can make a decision and execute it confidently, knowing that you have done your homework and the data is on your side.
Streamlining your real estate business is not a case of “set it and forget it.” It requires continual improvement – but this is a good thing.
Every improvement reduces manual work to free up more time and focus, which is what you need to delight customers and grow your company. So next time you find yourself stuck in a tedious, task – there might be an opportunity to streamline it. Not just for you, but for everyone at your company.
Want to see how you can capture more leads 24/7 and grow your business with a live answering service? Book a free 15-minute consultation today.
