Real estate agents and brokers know their markets well. They know how to work with buyers and sellers. They are pros at negotiating. When it comes to managing their business, this sometimes takes a backseat to the day-to-day tasks they handle. Choosing the best real estate CRM is critical for agents who want to manage client relationships and tasks, and grow their business.
Yet, by implementing a tried-and-true cloud system, it becomes possible to make the most of every lead and sale. It all comes down to the customer relationship management, or CRM, you use within your business. This type of technology allows you to manage all relationships and interactions with each lead you receive. To do this manually, you would need to spend every day at your desk, working those leads. Your time and energy are better spent in the field.
With the best CRM for real estate, it becomes possible for you to automate many of the tasks you need to accomplish. It also allows you to have a consistent, end-to-end workflow view, giving you the ability and tools to manage every lead, every appointment, and every transaction.
Not All CRMs Are the Same
The very best CRM for real estate is one that enables you to do more with your team in an efficient manner. Again, agents are best known for their people skills, not necessarily having to spend hours behind a computer. Older CRM tools were labor-intensive. You spent a lot of time plugging information into the system. And, that took away from your time actually working with your clients.
Some inferior systems are also hard to use or take a significant amount of training. These limit you. If your current system is not providing you with enough tools and insight, it is time to look for another solution. The best real estate CRMs are more than just digital contact lists. They should be able to help you accomplish tasks such as:
- Creating digital flyers to create curbside leads.
- Send and receive notifications in real-time to communicate changes.
- Allow you to manage not just yourself, but your entire team.
- Allow you to create, add and change calendar features in real-time with just a few simple changes.
- Allow you to instantly link to those customers who see your marketing with text messages.
- Enable you to monitor leads more efficiently no matter how many you have.
Most importantly, the best CRM for real estate gives you the information and tools necessary to turn your leads into sales.
Why Upgrading Matters to You Today
A key strategy in real estate investment is to ensure that any money you put into your business now produces opportunities for profits later. If your firm is not using a top real estate CRM right now, you are missing opportunities. If your real estate contact management CRM is outdated, not in the cloud, or does not employ automation, you are missing sales and leads.
Upgrading and modernizing your agency is necessary. Real estate is a tech-focused industry. Buyers do most of their looking for homes online. They can easily do most of the research themselves. To ensure you continue to play a valuable role in your client’s journey in buying or selling, you must be just as tech-focused.
The best real estate CRMs can help you to do this. They open the door for opportunities to connect and reconnect. They allow you to sell more efficiently, maximize your time, and always have key information on hand to meet your client’s needs. Modernizing your current system is essential as new tools enable efficiency and create ROI right away.
Now is the time to consider how the best CRM for real estate can enhance the way you do business. It could help your brokerage to become a leading player in your region.
Overwhelmed By the Options?
CRMs for real estate range widely in the services and features they offer. Frankly, it can be hard to know when to update to something new. It’s essential to consider which features are powerful enough to make enough of a difference in your business to be the best crm for realtors.
To be clear – not just any “new” CRM is worth your investment. Specifically, you need a high-performing, easy-to-use system with enhanced tools and features. Here is a look at the proven features and tools the very best CRM provide to real estate agents. These are the features any new system must have to be worth your investment.
#1: Relationship Management Tools
The goal of the best real estate CRMs are to create opportunities to manage client relationships. These relationships are incredibly important. However, they are the most difficult to build over time. Most real estate agents must connect with dozens of new leads every month in order to close on enough deals. With the right tools and the top CRM for real estate, every lead received becomes more valuable and can make more of an impact.
Below, we discuss some more specific features. For superior relationship management tools, the best CRM for real estate brokerages must provide at least the following:
- Document management including uploading and downloading documents with ease, storing them in the cloud to create accessibility anywhere, and managing all aspects in compliance with local regulations. A top CRM for real estate will include this functionality.
- Transaction management to handle closings including tracking activities and dedicated space for notes. This feature will be included in the best CRM for realtors.
- Tools for triggering campaign strategies that generate emails and tasks to move leads further into the buying process. The best real estate CRMs are equipped with these capabilities.
- An easy way to connect with your entire team, all brokers as well as affiliated agencies. This is a critical component of the best real estate CRM.
- Simply integrations with other tools you have and use, such as Zapier. The best CRM for realtors should also allow you to export all of your contacts from other tools you may have used, including Constant Contact or MailChimp.
Your leads are assets. The best real estate CRMs will allow you to tackle every task needed to give each lead the time and attention necessary.
#2: Lead Generation and Marketing Automation
One of the key features to seek out in any type of top real estate CRM is its ability to automate the steps you normally take to input and manage your leads. The top CRM for real estate should focus on both lead generation and marketing, but with an emphasis on automation.
It’s difficult for any real estate brokerage to manage all leads in the most efficient way with a limited time. Your schedule pulls you in numerous ways. However, the top real estate CRM can be empowering because it helps to streamline every step of the process. It may be as simple as taking a lead and inputting it into an email campaign. Or, it could be as complex as scheduling showings to fit a limited window. A few things to consider in lead generation and marketing automation when considering a top real estate CRM include:
- Integration with Zapier – if this is the tool you are using for your real estate leads (and many organizations do) you want to ensure it is integrated into your top CRM for real estate.
- Develop strategies to nurture leads based on your underlying goals
- Manage a variety of strategies – and provides an unlimited amount of strategies for you to create
- Strategy development options for contacts, listings, closings, and so on – ample flexibility here is important
- Triggering of sequences and strategies based on the activities of the client, such as to-do lists, client emails, and tasks.
Most importantly, you want the real estate CRM to react to your leads, so you do not ever have to remember to take some action. When your leads are managed on a consistent basis, this creates the highest ROI for any marketing campaign you create.
#3: Capturing Leads
Where are your leads coming from? One of the differentiating features of the best CRM for real estate is this – they must facilitate a way for you to capture leads efficiently. In most brokerages, leads come from numerous sources. Sometimes it is as easy as answering a phone inquiry. Other times – and most commonly – leads come from numerous online avenues. It is up to your business to have a system in place to capture those leads so you can work them.
Most buyers and sellers use the internet to find the home of their dreams. As a result, agents must have both simplistic and efficient tools in place to capture those leads. Simple is important. If there are too many steps or too many complex questions required to be answered, your potential client moves on to the next agent. Avoid this. Instead, look for a CRM capable of meeting specific and key goals.
Lead capture is one key component, but so is email marketing. Your real estate CRM should also allow for a simple way for you to build opportunities with even cold leads.
A few key things to look for in these CRMs include the following:
- A way to create as well as manage web forms to capture all leads coming from your website; more specifically, seek out a solution with customization features.
- The CRM should automate this process. Once a lead is in hand, it should automatically apply the appropriate strategy to that person, for example moving the individual into an email drip campaign.
- Provide a simple and effective way to manage all leads from all sources including Zillow, Facebook, Displet, IDX Broker, and so on.
- Zapier email parser tools should be integrated to allow for importing as well as the creation of contacts you’ve emailed.
For email campaigns, you also want to see:
- An easy way to track message histories such as opens and clicks
- Professional, effective letters to send
- Unlimited library items to allow ample flexibility
- Image and document attachment options
- Single email options as well as long-term drip campaigns
#4: Calendar and Task Management
Time is valuable to any agent or broker. Making decisions about where to spend each working day is critical to your success. If you do not put enough time into one task, you may not close a deal. On the other hand, if you miss an appointment, you’ve lost an opportunity for a sale. To best manage your business, then, you need a powerful tool to work as your task-management system.
Look for a calendar and task management solution that accomplishes several goals. First, it has to be easy to use. You don’t have time to pull up dozens of screens to input an appointment. You also want to ensure the task management is reflective of the types of tasks you, personally, as well as each of your agents manages on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
A few key things to look for in the best CRM for real estate include:
- A solution that allows for activity records to be accessed to manage your calendar appointments and your tasks. This streamlines your efforts.
- A simple way to schedule everything – a to-do list for you, phone calls for clients, appointments for marketing events, and much more.
- Tools to allow for effective management of contracts, closing timelines, showing appointments, and listing appointments.
- Mobile access to your information.
- Calendar sharing with your entire team.
- Easy ways to see your monthly, weekly, and daily appointments.
Also, seek out a system that sends you alerts when appointments occur. For example, a simple text message an hour before your next showing gives you plenty of time to get there on time. All of this builds efficiency into your day-to-day tasks.
#5: Efficient Contact Management
Your contacts are your “little black book” of potential sales. Value them at the highest level possible. Every person you add to your contacts is an opportunity for you whether it is in a direct sale or a networking tool. Most brokers see hundreds of contacts every month. Yet, just a handful of these turns into buyers and sellers.
But, companies with a comprehensive list and the right management tools for contacts can work to build them into profit-producing sales. The best contact management systems provide more than just a simple list of people. They enable your agency to target clients and leads, gather insight into each one of them as you go, and provides key data that can help you to turn a cold lead into a profitable transaction.
The best contact management features for real estate agents include the following:
- Simple importing of data from your current email programs, such as Outlook, Gmail or other CRMs – that’s important since most agents don’t want to spend a lot of time gathering data.
- A simple way of keeping details on each of the contacts, including in-depth profiles based on all the information you have.
- Email history tools to provide insight into when they receive an email from you, when they open it, and when they come back to your website.
- Online and easy-to-access contact lists including mobile access.
- Contact sharing to allow for data to be shared with other agents.
Also look for a system designed to be highly efficient. You want to go in, make updates about your last phone call or appointment, and move on. This allows you to efficiently manage each contact every time. You’ll never confuse your potential clients again.
How Pro Agent Solutions Exceeds Expectations in CRM
With specialized resources designed for real estate agents, CRM Pro – CRM software for real estate from Pro Agent Solutions provides a highly effective, easy-to-use tool that defines the success of any brokerage. Built for agents, our cloud-based software enables better communication, streamlined efforts, and improved lead outcomes. Every single lead matters. And, with automation like this, you can properly manage those leads.
Pro Agent Solutions helps real estate agents and brokers sell more homes using technology. Consider how it can transform your business with the best CRM for real estate. Contact us to learn more about the opportunities available to you. You can sign up for a paid subscription now, or even request a free trial demo of our tools.