I have seen the future…. And it’s yesterday
There are many #PropTech companies out there bringing us lots of different products that they say we need. So, when the company that brought us Spectre (A product I have not only recommended to clients but one that I use on my day to day estate agency life) told me about their new product “Hello Again”, I was keen to see what it had to offer.
We estate agents are great at knowing what’s going on in our market right now. Who has listed that? How do we get that listing? We are also great at looking forward, telling potential vendors, through various marketing channels, that we are the best agent to choose IF they are coming to the market.
If you were to ask the CEO of almost any business to give you a list their top three thoughts on how to grow a business, they will tell you “Repeat Business”. Yet, I find that agents, in general, don’t work with their database of past sales and purchases. Why?
Oh, don’t get me wrong. On a training session on this subject agents will tell me –
We contact our purchasers 12 months after completion to see if they want to find out how much the house has increased in value.
We show them how the market has performed in that time.
We do this every year they are in the property to keep that relationship going.
There is one question I ask them that gets most agents in a series of “uhmms”, “Wells” and “You Sees”. I ask them “How?” (They do this). What I then find is that the switched on agents know they should keep in contact with past success stories but they don’t.
Then I ask why?
The answer is usually “We have more pressing things to do”. What this shows is that the day to day “Stuff” is getting in the way of solid business strategy and process.
Well, I have just had a “Test Drive” of Hello Again, the new #PropTech product from the team that brought us Spectre.
Designed to allow the forward thinking agent to keep in contact with its previous success stories, build that relationship and secure repeat business.
Once the data transfer is complete the system can run itself but does allow agent interaction to personalise content.
Having been involved in Data Transfer previously, the process is as simple as it gets, simply uploading from a CSV file or spreadsheet.
I have always said that any #PropTech product MUST release the agent from doing “Stuff” so that they can concentrate on customer engagement. Hello Again, not only does that but also manages the engagement for you.
Let’s not forget the customer in all this. How would you feel if on the anniversary of buying your largest ever purchase you received a free report on how that investment, along with the market in general, is preforming? Pretty good, right!
To finish, I’d like to respond to an agency CEO I met recently to said “Let’s be honest Nigel, Service levels are all well and good but they don’t pay the bills”. Hello Again might just be the product that ensures that they do.
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