Now that you know all about the CRM maturity journey, you can start thinking about developing a strategy to progress your real estate agency further toward the Innovation stage.
There are a number of key strategy line items that, when considered as a whole, will give your agency a clear direction forward. Here’s what you need to think about:
1. Set targets
A CRM strategy keeps everyone focused on reaching the same goals. However, if those goals aren’t articulated and visible, how can you expect staff to work towards them?
The first step is deciding what you want to achieve and pick the metrics you’ll track. Depending on your goals, those metrics may be:
- Win-loss analysis
- Conversation rate
- Average lead lifecycle
- Goal tracking
- or something different entirely.
The key is to choose what you’re measuring and measure it consistently.
2. Consider the most important people
No, not you. We’re talking about your customers. First, think about:
- What are your agency’s key objectives for your contacts?
- What is your agency's view on lifetime sales potential?
- What is the ultimate vision and mission for your brand’s relationship with customers and prospects?
- Taking the time to think about all of these things at the beginning will put you in the right mindset to…
3. Prioritise customer needs
This one sounds fancy, but really it’s simply about knowing what is going on in the minds of buyers and sellers in your local area and considering what is really important to them - today, tomorrow and in ten years' time.
You deal with your customers every day, so you inherently know these things. But, if you want to improve your bottom line, you should be prioritising their needs based on value for your agency.
To do that, start by documenting the different types of buyers and sellers your agency interacts with, identifying their pain points and the value they’re seeking. Then, prioritise each of the segments in order of the value of the potential business you see coming from them.
4. Map out user journeys
You’ve probably heard a lot about ‘adding value’. It’s something that needs to happen at every stage of the buying and selling journey if you want to provide a great customer experience.
To start, map out example user journeys of buyers and sellers – detailing each interaction they have with your agency; every touchpoint you want to make. Think beyond the sale into how your relationships may evolve over months and years. Your CRM can help you to build clients (and referrals) for life – but only if you continuously add value.
Once you’ve mapped out your user journeys, you need to…
5. Build workflows into your system
Systemised workflows help all your agents work the same way, providing a consistent customer experience to every buyer and seller who comes into contact with your agency. Workflows can also help new starters get up to speed and work efficiently as quickly as possible.
You’ll need a workflow for every user journey. Rex comes with a bunch built into the system – we call them tracks. They make it incredibly easy to remember what you need to do, and when you need to do it - with only minimal thought necessary. Tracks take the mystery out of best practice follow-up.
6. Prioritise training
Your CRM is only valuable if your employees use it, and training is a key element in adoption. Investing in one-to-one or group training, as well as continued support, will help to unlock the value of the system amongst employees and ensure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.
Consider how people in different roles will need to use the system, and tailor their training accordingly.
It’s also important to assign someone responsible for communicating system updates and new features to the team.
7. Create a data strategy plan
We’ve saved the biggest strategy piece for last. Your contact and property data is at the core of your customer relationship strategy. It must be clean, organised and accessible; your single point of truth.
All agency staff need to be entering and storing data in the same way. The data points each agent or admin is capturing needs to be considered and, of course, it needs to find its way back into your CRM software so it can be used to add value to the conversations you have with your customers.
