For this feature release, we’ve gone on Uservoice rampage of Spartan proportions. In fact, we've closed off so many suggestions, over 1,100 votes have been released back into the wild. If you see anything you've supported below, be sure to jump back into Uservoice and vote on something new! Uservoice - our online feature suggestion and voting platform - has been ringing off the hook lately. We’ve had a tonne of great suggestions, and hundreds of Rexperts have been joining in and casting their votes. Our developers loved plenty of your suggestions, and we’re happy to announce that your most sought-after features are now live within the system.Strap in. We’ve got a lot to cover.
1. Advanced contact details - titles for every occasion
“What’s in a name?” asks Juliet. Apparently, a fair bit. Some of our clients were struggling with the traditional, run of the mill, first-and-last-name format - especially when it came to switching between formal contract-speak, and the lighthearted tone of a newsletter. Well, Rex will now help keep your prospects (and roses) as sweet, by any other name.
Boom, baby! Three in one. That’s right, you can now include a middle name, a legal name, a salutation and the addressee to a contact record. Rex will use the right one when sending emails, newsletters, filling out contracts, etc. Now, the ‘James Kirk’ in your database can now be correctly addressed as ‘Captain James Tiberius Kirk,’ on his legal documents, and as ‘Jim Kirk’ in friendly e-mails with new, enterprising listings. These new fields can be accessed per usual from the contact’s name settings, and when editing existing contacts.
Ta-da!
Top Tip: If you’re still having trouble finding the right contacts from the Rex search bar, remember to try load more results or all matching contacts for a comprehensive list.
2. Mass brochure generation
Going through and manually generating brochures one by one from each individual listing record can be a bit of a time sink. We’ve had a lot of clients asking us if we can implement a way to generate multiple listings at once. We decided to do just that, and have expanded on the idea to allow for a new mass export brochure function to the listings screen.
Now it’s just a matter of filtering your listings, selecting the relevant records, and hey presto, you can generate a whole afternoon’s worth of brochures, or prepare your entire agency window, in just a few clicks.
What’s more, this feature will also allow you to create custom booklets. If your client wants a little more information you might prefer to print them a ream of full brochures instead. There’s more information and images, all in an arguably nicer format. Plus, using Rex’s endless merge tags and advanced filter functionality, you could even use this as a tool to generate incredibly specific resources for internal or external use.
3. Auction location
The jury’s still out whether on-site or in-room auctions are faster to “bring down the hammer,” but in the meantime, we’ve added an auction location field so you can decide for yourself. Located in the events tab for a listing, this new field allows an alternate address to be provided on any upcoming auctions.
What’s more, we’ve updated our upload feeds to send this to any supporting portals and websites. If the portal doesn’t support a separate auction location, we’ll automatically include the address at the start of your advertising text so no-one gets left at the gate on a wet day.
Of course, this new location will be included in stocklists automatically - as well as newsletters and brochures should you wish to via use of a merge tag. Speaking of stocklists…
4. Stocklist polish
The ol’ stocklist is a powerful marketing tool, and the development team have been logging some serious hours buffing it to a shining patina. First off, we’ve added space beside each listing for information on an auction, set-sale or tender venue and time, when applicable. You also have the option to include OFI times, to boot.
There’s the opportunity to include a building or business name, too.
When looking for a listing pertinent to the fried chicken joint down the road, it’ll be far easier to scan the stocklist for ‘Clucking Good Chicken,’ instead of searching for 8/1104 Angina Drive.
5. Custom default durations for open homes
There were plenty of people who thought we should shorten the length of our open home inspections from a (reasonably generous) hour, to 30 minutes. This makes more sense for agents dealing with residential sales and rental properties, however a lot of our rural clients didn’t feel that half an hour was nearly long enough to show off some of their vast estates. What’s more, our rental clients started asking us to bump it down even further, with a default of 15 minutes. Understandably, we felt somewhat caught in the middle.
In true Rex style, we figured the best way to make everyone happy was to leave it entirely up to you. Now you can set your own default OFI duration in the admin menu, (under advanced settings).
Pick a duration that suits your agency best, (for both for sales and rental OFIs). Rex will automatically pre-populate end times for OFI entries, saving you and yours some extra clicking too.
6. Repeat OFIs
Sometimes, despite not finding huge success in the polls, a feature will still stand out to our developers. Don’t be shy about suggesting something - you don’t need Beyonce levels of stardom to get your long-awaited idea in the system. We managed to implement this while looking at the custom open home times (above).
Another time saver for the busy amongst you - Rex will now allow recurring Open For Inspections to be scheduled against the same listing automatically.
Simply insert the details of your OFI as per usual, select a frequency, create the OFIs, then drill down into each individual appointment and customise to your liking. You might even like to schedule another reminder. Oh, and go grab a coffee before the first inspection with the time you just saved.
Too long; didn’t read?
For the time-poor amongst you, we’ll break it down. Our latest feature release has seen a plethora of new additions to Rex:
- We’ve added extra name fields for contacts - including middle names, titles, salutations, legal name and an addressee field. This allows you to better engage with customers by personalising your Rex correspondence to suit every format (legal documents vs chipper emails, for example).
- You can now create multiple brochures at once through the Listings system list. This is a huge time saver, and allows you to create custom brochure booklets for clients who want a little extra information.
- Stocklists now provide important information more clearly, including auction time and location, open home times, building name and business name.
- You can now define your agency’s default OFI duration. Separate durations can be set for both sales and rental inspections. (This has solved the issue many agencies had with our default 60 minute inspection times).
- For even more saved time, you can now add multiple recurring OFIs to a listing in the one entry. If you’re holding several near-identical inspections over a month’s period, this will be a life-saver.
- Building names are now included as part of the address in stocklists, open home lists and supporting portals.
Thankyou to everyone who took the time to recommend these great new features to us. Also a massive shoutout to those continuing to suggest new features on UserVoice. Finally, check out this article on Uservoice for more information on how you can take an active interest in the development of Rex. Your two cents is worth a lot to us.
