Gain more business through managing applicants!

| Technology

Gain more business through managing applicants!

Applicant management has always been a phrase that no negotiator wants to hear. This is mainly because without a decent estate agency software system with built in client relationship management (CRM) capability, applicant management means trawling through hundreds, sometimes thousands of applicants to find out if they are still looking.

Typically this would have been thought about at the beginning of December, or during other quiet periods throughout the year. Any Estate Agent that has tried to work on applicant management only during quiet periods will tell you that it is not only an almost impossible task, but also one that doesn’t end up getting done properly – often it will be a case of ‘well they haven’t spoken to us for a while, so I will file them’ (more than likely in the bin if a paper applicant system, or by selecting ‘archive/delete’ on a computerised system).

Obviously, this kind of ‘filing’ is not good for business, or for customer service. Often decent applicants will have been ‘filed’ due to lack of contact, and ended up buying a property from a competitor. When these buyers (vendors of the future) come to sell their property that they bought from your competitor who do you think they will think about calling out, the agent that never contacted them when they were searching for their home or the pro-active agents that they remember for better reasons?

Worse still, sometimes the applicants that have been ‘filed’ will have also been potential vendors at the point that they were ‘filed’ meaning direct loss of a fee earning opportunity for you.

So, if you are still with me after 1 minute of reading the dreaded words ‘APPLICANT MANAGEMENT’ followed by 3 paragraphs talking about this offensive part of the estate agency business, I would like to talk about a way that applicant management can be taken care of on an ongoing basis, with very little effort and great results. Further still, I promise you that if my suggested process is followed by every member of staff in your office, you will list, sell & rent more property as a result.

Using a modern cloud based estate agency software system, with a built in CRM capability it is possible to produce a list, every single day, which will display any applicants that have not been contacted, or made contact with you within a set period of time (let’s just say a month for example) at the click of a button.

If all of your staff is trained from day one that as part of their job role, they are expected to click that applicant management button and call ALL applicants that appear on the list every single day, they will never have the impossible task of trying to call hundreds, or indeed thousands of applicants again. Think about it, if this simple task is undertaken daily and the only applicants that are appearing on the list are people that that not been spoken to for one month, the list will only be made up of applicants that registered on this day exactly a month ago and haven’t been in touch for whatever reason since. How many applicants does each of your negotiators register in a day? A few I guess, but maybe ten or even twenty! Through the month some of those applicants will have viewed property, some will have been in touch for other reasons and some will have bought through you or through a competitor. Experience demonstrates to us that each negotiator is likely to have just one or two applicants on their list, if it is done every single day.

The real key to making this work and getting more business from better applicant management is making sure that applicant management is taken seriously and carried out every single da, and by every single member of staff that registers or manages applicants. Therefore policing the process is absolutely essential.

Resource Techniques cloud based Estate Agency software system enables easy applicant management at the click of a button, and also makes the policing of the process simple.

For a free demonstration of our estate agency software, or if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch. 0208 457 4777

Troy Stanley