Did you know? 46 percent of all firms cited keeping up with technology as one of the biggest fears facing their firm in the next two years (2015 Profile of Real Estate Firms). As we grow our businesses, the demands of balancing lead generation, nurturing, communication, facilitation, reporting, and team management grow exponentially. Today, real estate CRM software is a critical business tool for any team and even single agent.
CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management (CRM). CRM is also a common moniker to describe a wide variety of customer relationship management tools. CRMs automate customer engagement and help you keep track of your pipeline, buckets, and communication. In practice, CRMs keep you focused on what matters: Saving costs and making money.
Although CRMs are built with specific industries in mind, at their core, CRMs work on the back- and front-ends to help manage databases of clients plus their unique corresponding information.
Chime
Chime was built mobile-first, so your CRM is available on any device, anywhere you happen to be. Chime is an “all in one” real estate business solution, which means, in addition to the CRM, you have access to automated lead generation campaigns from multiple sources (including Facebook Ads), and a personalized IDX website. The Chime CRM syncs all your activity and leads on the backend in the cloud, which means leads captured from your IDX website, Facebook campaigns, or open house feature are all automatically delivered into your CRM, scored, and routed to your team based on the rules you set. Chime allows you to add popular integrations like Zapier, Zillow, Mailchimp, and Gmail, too! Lastly, your data is proprietary, which means it’s yours to take with you!
Follow Up Boss
One of the older and most popular CRMs, Follow Up Boss offers modern CRM features like cloud syncing between iOS and Android devices and popular integrations like Gmail and Outlook. In addition, leads are also automatically imported from online marketing campaigns, including leads captured from your IDX website. Follow Up Boss also offers a “Smart List” feature, which will score and separate your hottest leads from leads which require more nurturing.
Top Producer
Top Producer is another long-standing CRM for agents. Top Producer champions their integrations with lead providers like Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com. Like Chime, Top Producer also heavily leverages team management and coaching through dashboard analytics. Lastly, Top Producer also offers a special “social media” stream, which let’s you view lead activity on social platforms for additional lead insight.
IXACT
Much like Follow Up Boss’ real estate CRM solution, IXACT is another iconic business solution for real estate agents. IXACT offers a special “quick view” feature on their dashboard, allowing you to track your campaigns, pipelines, and interactions. Like Chime, IXACT also offers automated email marketing drip campaigns and tasks for team members. And like Chime, IXACT also automatically captures and distributes leads into your CRM.
Salesforce is one of the most popular B2B and B2C small business-to-enterprise level CRMs. Salesforce is a great CRM, but considering it’s size and relative complexity (think Ikea furniture versus buying a chair pre-assembled), Salesforce isn’t an appropriate CRM for real estate.
You could. It’s been done before much in the same way Napoleonian marched on Moscow in the Winter of 1812 and found it set ablaze stranding his army. Even before Excel and even way before personal computers, businesses were able to crush sales without software, but it was incredibly painstakingly slow and required significantly more staff.
Unfortunately Excel is not a real estate sales solution. It’s an excellent finance tool, however, it doesn’t offer and customer relationship management features. Column B, Row 32 has a buyer lead with an number and address, but where is Column B’s recent search history, lead score, lender notes, or even birthday?
Today, the benefits of using real estate CRM tools heavily outweigh all other options. CRMs are optimized to save you time!
Today, modern real estate CRMs have a few distinct advantages over traditional databases and database management tools:
Before You Shop, It’s Time for a Questionnaire!
Next, let’s define some goals and see how your next CRM will help:
With your answers in mind, here is a list of important features and benefits to look for when shopping around for a CRM. The features highlighted below are designed to help automate your business, so even though some features might seem complex, they are easy to run and manage.
Does the CRM:
Balancing multiple tools was unfortunately incredibly common. The problem came from software developing companies over-promising their solutions and severely under-delivering with their products. It’s one of the most common necessities I hear from agents in the field, on the phone, and even at trade shows: I wasted money on a tool which didn’t provide the expected results!
Ready to know more about real estate crm software? Grab the whole list with Chime. I can get you up and running with lead generation, team management, lead nurturing, and even IDX websites!
Call today to find out more and request a free demo!
Learn how the Chime CRM impacted the lives of Kenny Truong, #FASTAGENT and Wilson Leung of KW.