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Every real estate professional knows that the professional handling of telephone calls can be critical.  It could be your next client, or the call could be to inform you that the close you have scheduled in two hours just blew up.  Either way, you need to make sure that your telephone calls are handled as they happen and in a professional manner.

The following post is being published to give you something to think about in terms of a real estate marketing tool you may not have considered.  This post is not an endorsement of Continental Message Solution.  It is a well-written and hopefully thought-provoking discussion about your telephone. 

If you’re in a client meeting, Who’s Answering Your Telephone?

Making a Call Center Part of Your Real Estate Marketing Toolbox

Regardless of how much time you spend marketing, you’ll never reap the benefits if your organization isn’t in the position to capitalize on new opportunities. Utilizing the internet is crucial here, and it’s the easiest place to start, but what about the telephone? Can prospects reach you on the phone? And if they can, what image are you projecting?

By advertising a telephone number or advertising a phone number that goes straight to voicemail, you’re putting the legitimacy of your operation in question, which will ultimately affect your bottom line. There’s no sense marketing if you can’t be trusted.

Enter the real estate call center.

Providing a variety of different services, these companies answer telephone calls on your behalf and act as an extension of your business. Instead of you paying employees, most call centers only charge for time spent handling your calls.

In terms of marketing, utilizing a call center allows you to maintain a professional image around the clock. Instead of answering calls yourself and running the risk of sounding unprofessional (either because you don’t answer in the name of your business or because your busy and come off as being rude), a call center will ensure that calls are consistently answered in a courteous manner.

While it’s true that call centers are sometimes associated with dubious operations, they’re also associated with some of the biggest and most reputable companies on the planet. Whether your call center comes off as good or evil depends on how you implement it. If you use it to shield yourself from the public and never return phone calls, it’s going to work against you. If you use it to process leads, route phone calls, and act as the first line of communication before reaching others within your organization, it will boost your image and help you make a positive impression.

Ultimately, people want to do business with experienced professionals that they can trust, and putting some thought into how your telephone calls are handled is one way to exude this image.

Beyond the way a call center can improve your image, which is part of building a strong brand, there are additional benefits that come from improved efficiency and data collection.

Call centers log and record every call, giving you access to an incredible amount of information. Using this data can help you determine which marketing campaigns are effective and which are wastes of time.
Though it costs a little more in terms of setup, modern call centers are also capable of advanced integration, which allows them to upload data directly into CRM programs and interact with web based software applications.

[Note from Kathleen:  Your phone call leads/information can be put directly into IXACT, Top Producer, etc.  Could this be another way to address the "I've got leads in 5 different databases" issue?] 

These improvements can streamline your lead qualification process and reduce the amount of time you spend on data entry. Sure, your marketing may yield thousands of responses, but if you can’t process every piece of data you aren’t getting the most out of your investment.

Done correctly, making a call center part of your real estate operation will improve your legitimacy and make it easier for people to do business with you, something that is of critical importance if you’re looking to succeed in this highly competitive marketplace.

If you have any feedback on using a call center in your real estate business, I’d love to hear from you. Whether your relationship was a success or a complete disaster, I always find it advantageous to speak with people and learn more about what is working and what isn’t.

About the author:

Gere Jordan works in business development, marketing and operations at Continental Message Solution, Inc. (CMS), a nationwide provider of real estate call center services based in Columbus, Ohio. He has experience designing and implementing effective call center solutions, improving communication workflows, and helping companies share their success via the web.

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Keeping up with the real estate market in general is similar to herding cats.  If you’ve ever had a cat, you know that herding one is nearly impossible.  And, herding more than one is. . .  well, you can forget it.

So, when I see an interesting way to get real estate news and analysis, it’s worth passing along.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to the arguments about which news organization is conservative or liberal.  If you do, this source may not be viable for you.

Do you think CNBC is impartial,  too conservative or too liberal?  I don’t have an opinion.  If you do, and CNBC is on your list of places to ignore, just stop reading this post right now.

Check Out Realty Check

Realty Check is a part of the CNBC website.  According to the site, here’s the purpose of Realty Check (the bolding is mine):

• “Realty Check takes you from the housing boom to bust and beyond.  Led by Diana Olick, we were here when the house came crashing down and we have the singular expertise to explain how it will be rebuilt.  The goal of this blog is to bring the market, the rescue plans, the politics and the pontification home to you, with clear concise explanations of the wildly complicated issues in all facets of real estate today and tomorrow.  Realty Check is read by leaders in the real estate industry: Investors, Realtors, Big builder CEOs, Mortgage Bankers, Wall Street Analysts and Administration Officials to name a few.

When you visit Realty Check, you will find a blog written by Diana Olick, a CNBC reporter based in Washington, who covers the real estate market.  You’ll also find regularly published videos.  Some of the recent videos deal with the latest reports on home prices, the July drop in pending home sales and what the housing data indicates about the economy.

I think it’s a quick way to get another perspective of what is driving the real estate market nationally.  From there, you can see how those trends are impacting your area.

And, it’s an easy way to get ammunition that will positively reinforce your standing as the real estate market guru in your marketplace.

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If you’ve visited our Real Estate Marketing Tools section on our main website, you’ve seen information about a great Real Estate Contact Manager.

The contact manager is IXACT, and not only is it a great tool for real estate professionals, it’s used by people who aren’t directly in the real estate industry.  And, I’m one of those people.  I use IXACT because it is ridiculously simple to use, yet it has all the features of contact managers that take days and weeks to figure out.  Now, IXACT has gotten even more valuable!

The Real Estate Database Challenge

Most of the time, if you’re a real estate professional, you have several places where leads are maintained in different databases.  If you want to convert leads to clients or customers, you need to have a central repository for all your contacts.  If you do master that first challenge, the second challenge is to find a way to send mass emails to contact all or a group of the leads and clients in your database.

Very often, people will turn to services such as Constant Contact to send those emails.  And, of course, that means that you create and update another separate database.

Why use a service?  Because in order to do effective email marketing you need a reporting capability.  You need to know how many emails were successfully delivered,  how many were opened (and who opened them), the click-through rate and bounce rate, etc.

The Real Estate Database Reduction Opportunity

I am not aware of any contact manager that offers a reporting capability.  But IXACT does now.

That means that you can put all of your leads, regardless of the source, into your IXACT database.  You can do all of the things you normally do with a contact manager:

• keep track of personal details for the contacts
• set up reminders for things you need to do
• track interaction with contacts
• set up activity plans
• track buying preferences
• track homes showed to buyers
• add contacts from your website directly to your IXACT database using IXACT’s Website Lead Capture forms you embed directly into your website pages
• and the list goes on

In addition, you can also send mass emails just like a regular email marketing service does.

It will reduce the number of databases you need to create and maintain, and it will encourage you to do mailings more regularly because they are so easy to send!

You can visit IXACT for more information, or if you want to see what all the fuss is about, use the button above to get an extended trial period.

Enjoy!

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You must read this short post on Active Rain by Jane Peters who markets Los Angeles real estate.  If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you won’t be able to access it, so sign up for Active Rain now.  If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you should be anyway.

Jane’s bottom line message is:

I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this any more.

Read her post to find out why.  Do you agree?  or not???