CRM in Real Estate

Student Projects ( posted on 25 /10 / 2006)

Real estate also called “real property”. Land and anything permanently affixed to the land, such as building, fences and those things attached to the buildings, such as light fixtures, plumbing and heating fixtures, or other such items that would be personal property if not attached. In today’s fast moving culture, agents and property professionals are facing a major shift in the manner in which they find and again clients. The internet has encouraged buyers, vendors and clients to demand detailed information and immediately – no delays. Coupled with a complex range of selling options, increasing competition the real estate industry is even more challenging than ever before.

CRM is a business approach that integrates people, processes and technology to maximize the relations of an organization with all types of customers.

The true value of CRM is to transform strategy, operational processes and business functions in order to retain customers and increase customer loyalty and profitability.

It is a business strategy that aims to understand, anticipate and manage the needs of an organization’s current and potential customers. It is a journey of strategic, process, organizational and technical change whereby a company seeks to better manage its own enterprise around customer behaviors. It entails acquiring and developing knowledge but one’s customers and using this information across the various touch points to balance revenue and profits with maximum customer satisfaction.

So where does CRM fit into real estate environment and how it can be implemented successfully?

CRM and real estate is the use of computer information technology to improve the real estate decision and customer services. Judgmental decisions can be improved because of better and more accessible information via the internet. Judgmental decisions benefit from information technology through improved asset management, and more accurate market trend tracking.

CRM and real estate includes geographic information systems (GIS) borrowed from the geographers. Real estate IT applies GIS to its own needs by using GIS to better describe, explain and predict phenomena that is of interest to the real estate industry. CRM and real estate goal is to use the technology to improve their decision making.

Today’s realtors, developers and homebuilders are undergoing a shift in the way they win and manage customers. Increased competition, demanding and knowledgeable buyers, large sales territories, and a complex range of selling options, makes your industry more challenging than ever before and hence the need for CRM and real estate.

The best strategy for navigating these challenges is to build strong, profitable relationships with customers. Unified sales, marketing and service operations allow real estate players understand and manage customer needs to build those strong relationships. CRM and real estate & Construction help them to measurably improve their ability to grow, serve and manage their buyer base.

The smoother workflows, step-by-step methodologies and unified system of pivotal CRM enable to unify and share up to the minute corporate and buyer information.

CRM in real estate helps to:

• Accelerate the sales cycle by making it easier for customers to buy a home, commercial property or land.

• Streamline sales process: Capture and track buyers, manage opportunities, forecast sales, align territories, report on performance, and share critical information with colleagues

• Configure buildings ands developments to precisely meet buyer needs, with real time information on locations, pricing and availability

• Improve service operations, increase up selling by capturing , tracking and resolving issues in unified system

• Increase order accuracy

• Track and understand market, competitor, customer, and sales trends for enhanced decision making and planning

What are real estate firms choices for CRM software?

• Trust accounting systems with some contact management functions

• Proprietary (made in access or filemaker pro etc) listing based systems with some contact management functions

• MS Outlook which has some contact management functions

• True CRM such as ACT! (LAN and Web), Sales Logix (LAN and Web) which are not real estate specific unless modified

• Build it yourself – normally expensive and time consuming

Many important considerations in implementing a real estate CRM system include:

• Central database across offices or separate

• Web based or LAN based or a mix

• Listing web site integration

• Html email and letter merge facilities

• Data security and access for individual agents

• Trust accounting integration

• Data migration from existing systems

• Real estate campaign management tracking

• Automated process engineering

• Training and customizing