Focus on Estate Agents Software - How to maximise all potential valuation opportunities

There is a famous saying within the IT training fraternity, that’s often not said quite so politely… Which is ‘Rubbish in Rubbish out’, this essentially means that if poor quality information is entered in to an IT system, you can really only expect poor system information out. All information systems are subject to user misuse, either through poor or no training, laziness or even negligence. The key to ensuring that the correct and required information is entered by all users is as follows -  

1) Agree a strategy within your office that clearly sets out what information users are expected to collect from each and EVERY sales enquiry…  i.e. Their full name, address, contact details (including Mobile number and email) search requirements and their current position or category (FTB, Sale Agreed, Cash etc.)

2) The system should be policed on a daily basis to ensure users are following this strategy, as it only takes one person to compromise the system for all users. This doesn’t need to be heavy handed or indeed labour intensive. It simply requires yesterday’s client data to be reviewed in order to check that everyone is playing the game.  Most Estate Agency systems have a filter that allows clients to be listed by the date they were entered, so simply run the filter and check the entries are correct.

With specific regard to ‘maximising potential valuation opportunities’ it is the position or category that will ensure your valuation enquires are maximised. Most Estate Agency Software systems have an ‘Applicant Category’ field, perhaps something like this -

a) Category 1 - Immediately Proceedable

b) Category 2 - Own to sell in your area (on the market or not)

c) Category 3 -   Not proceedable out of area

Ensuring that this field is completed is critical to maximising valuation opportunities, as with this mechanism used it is simple to filter ‘Category 2’ clients, providing you a list of potential new instructions. 

A ‘Smart’ working practice would be to task a senior negotiator to run this filter each day, ensuring that every client listed is spoken to and given special treatment going forward. This will demonstrate your approach to customer service and encourage them to use your agency to sell their property.  Sound simple? It’s the simplest ideas that are often the best… Give it a try!

I make no apologies for the blatant sales pitch - Resource Techniques, produce a cloud based Estate Agency software system called ‘RT Live’. The RT Live system is based around a CRM (Client Relationship Manager) philosophy that allows users to actively manage client relationships not only today but into the future. Our belief is that Estate agency software systems should not simply stop once the applicant stops looking or the property is sold, information’s systems should continue to periodically engage with people over the course of their property journey, from renting their first apartment to buying their retirement home. Our system is therefore client or people focused rather than how most other agency systems are engineered, being property focused. That’s why we call our product ‘software for life’, a nice idea in practice.