A free checklist from real estate technology experts Rex ensures property professionals can tailor their customer relationship management strategies to hit the ground running in the new financial year.
The CRM Grader tool asks 24 questions in the key categories of prospecting, listing and selling, administration and agency management.
You don’t need to be a Rex customer to complete the questions, receive a Grader score and apply the recommendations to your office routines.
“This isn’t about the type of technology you are using but your customer relationship strategy, how you think about your processes and what they are doing for you,” Rex Head of Brand and Marketing Tracey Jones said.
The Rex CRM Grader was developed along the lines of the CRM Maturity models created at the start of the 2000s. An honest assessment often shows companies are missing some key opportunities their CRM can support. It helps firms understand their maturity level, set a vision for the future and create a roadmap to get there.
Using Rex’s CRM Grader score, agencies are rated in grades from static to reactive, proactive and finally innovative.
Agencies that achieve the innovative rating have leaders who share a vision for the business and there is accountability and responsibility for tasks required to achieve that vision. There is a culture of learning in the workplace and key metrics are tracked, analysed and acted on.
These agencies use automation to maximise the time agents spend doing what matters most, building relationships.
Training and staff management are priorities for agencies which achieve a proactive grading.
The main cause of agencies being stuck in the reactive phase is having resources that are adequate for their current needs but not sufficient for growth, Ms Jones said.
The agencies which receive the static grading are likely to lack resources with poorly defined or no processes for customer relationship management.
“Most taking the survey are graded somewhere in the middle where they are doing a fair job but there is more they need to think about,” Ms Jones said.
“The survey gives you an insight into what needs to be done to take you to the next level.”
Ms Jones said agencies had been so busy during a booming real estate cycle many haven’t had time to consider long-term goals.
“So much of what we do in real estate, and business in general, is we have a desire for action and forward momentum,” Ms Jones said.
“Planning for the future tends to get pushed to the side and the CRM Grader helps people focus on that.”
True stories: The Innovators and Steve Jobs – by Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs had imagined the iPhone early in his life. Ever since that experience, Jobs set about trying to make it a reality, but he did that through the innovation of other, related products. He created the laptop, the mouse, the iPod, and eventually the iPhone.
Both of these books helped me realise that it pays to be persistent with something you’re passionate about, and that great ideas take time.
Rex also outlines a series of steps required to improve CRM maturity. The first step is setting targets, deciding the metrics to track and measuring these consistently.
These metrics could include a win-loss analysis and average lead lifecycle.
Other steps include investing in staff training and support and prioritising customer needs by mapping out their user journeys as buyers and sellers.
Central to a successful outcome is creating a data strategy plan to ensure contact and property data is clean, organised and accessible.
“Change is not going to happen on its own, it happens because there has been planning and strategic thinking,” Ms Jones said.
“We are a few weeks out from the start of a new financial year and now is a really good time to think about how you can make those improvements.”
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