How live chat helps Estate Agents generate leads
Having the right tools for an integrated marketing mix is critical for any estate agent and as part of this an increasing number of UK estate and letting agents recognise the benefits of live chat.
The ability to be open all hours and to engage with visitors just at the moment when they are showing an interest in your services and your proposition can often make the difference between a passive website visitor and winning a juicy instruction.
But (there’s a always a “but”), placing live chat is the easy bit. The hard part is making sure you have someone available to answer a chat when the visitor wants to engage. It is no good saying you have live chat only for the member of staff responsible for chatting to be off on a break, or worse still, someone looking to chat being greeted with a message “We’re not available right now!”
For small- and medium-sized businesses, staffing your own live chat is a non-starter. Yomdel takes that pressure away and ensures every visitor receives a response within 15 to 30 seconds, irrespective of the time of day or night.
Anyone who knows their Google Analytics will know that around 50% of website visitors are coming in when the office is closed. Property, after all, is a very emotive subject. When people are looking to sell or buy a new home they as likely to be looking from the comfort of their sofa in the evening as from their phone on the commute home.
Managed live chat enables people to engage immediately in real time and the results can be outstanding. It is probably worth sharing the results achieved by one very well-known national brand of estate and letting agents with their new 24/7 staffed live chat service.
Here’s what the national marketing manager said:
“The most encouraging aspect is that the leads being generated are not at the expense of those historically generated by the website. Total leads for March this year (including Live Chat) vs March 2015 (no live chat) … highlight a growth of 47%.”
This particular business also has a new website, so when we compare March 2016 (with chat) vs February 2016 (without chat), the number of leads was up 27%. Finally, the service only went live on 14th March, so these results were achieved from just half a month.
If the live chat impact was forecast for an entire month the total increase in leads would be well over 40% compared to the previous month, and let’s not forget, 50% came outside business hours too.
That’s all well and good, but what kind of leads were there? Well, in his instance the vast majority were landlords or vendors with properties to sell.
By Andy Soloman, Founder & CEO, Yomdel (http://www.yomdel.com)
@yomdel
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