Learn about what chatbots are, their potential be transformative, and how they can help real estate agents.
If you keep up with latest developments in real estate tech, you have likely heard of “Chatbots” or “artificial intelligence” powered programs. Like you, many are curious what these programs mean for us and how they could benefit real estate agents.
The mention of technology to real estate agents conjures thoughts of websites or mobile apps such as Zillow or their local MLS. Most real estate agents can navigate a website or app and click around, but to get the most out of any system agents need to dedicate valuable time to receive the right training and support. Time at a premium, this becomes challenging so Chatbots have the potential to help agents simplifying their lives.
What is a chatbot and why should I care?
Chatbot are programs designed to simulate conversation with human beings. The chat conversation is not necessarily limited to a website, in fact, you can talk to a chatbot by texting (SMS), Slack, Facebook Messenger, etc. The conversation can be as simple as “what’s your favorite movie?” or “what do you like to eat?” or specific like “follow up with my active leads” or “when was the last time I spoke to Mark”.
Chatbots have the potential to help users interact naturally with technology–through language. With latest developments in artificial intelligence technology, Chatbots are good enough to understand language. Instead of accessing your CRM to manage your leads, you can message “How many leads came in yesterday?” or “Follow up with my leads this week”. This is big because you don’t need to understand how to use a specific program, simply ask and you shall receive!
Managing client relationships
The average agent has over a 1,000 contacts in their sphere, staying on top of birthday, move in anniversaries, names, and communication with all your contacts is nearly impossible. Chatbots can help agents with common tasks like:
Tracking and recalling client activity
“Log a note under Mark Jacobson, he’s looking for 2 bedroom homes in Long Beach between $1.5m to $2m with a March 2017 move-in date” or “What were my notes for Mark?”
Sending out newsletters and postcards
“Send out my December 2016 newsletter to all contacts” or “Send Mark Jones my Move-in Anniversary postcard”
Recalling anniversaries and important dates
Text a chatbot, “When is Mark Jones’s birthday?” or “Remember that Liz Mason moved in on October 1, 2016”
Working prospective clients and leads
Agents spend countless hours qualifying leads, sending emails to prospective clients, and staying on top of listing alerts.
Send out drip campaigns
Just met a potential seller lead that’s not ready to buy yet? Just message your chatbot to put them on a drip campaign: “Put contact Mark Thompson on the 8 Touch FSBO drip campaign”
Compiling market reports
“Send me a market analysis for Long Beach, CA” a Chatbot can easily connect to available market data and put together a fancy market report on market activity making you look good in front of your clients
Sending out new listing alerts
“Send Liz Fuller listing alerts for 2 bed 2 bath properties in Long Beach” a Chatbot can schedule contacts to receive automatic alerts for listings meeting specific criteria by text or email
Make common marketing tasks easy
Agents market themselves and their properties, but doing so requires putting together collateral like postcards, mailers, and fancy listing flyers all of which a Chatbot can help with.
Putting together open house flyers
“Put together an open flyer for MLS 5891834” a Chatbot can connect to your MLS, compile an open house flyer for the property specified using a pre-defined template, and send it over to you ready for print
Creating postcards for mailing
“Put together Happy New Year postcards for all my past clients” a Chatbot can go through your contacts, use a pre-defined postcard template to create postcards so that you can just print, stamp, and mail
Ordering business cards
“Can you reorder 500 new business cards?” business cards don’t change very often and agents keep running out of them, ordering or reordering them can be a piece of cake with a Chatbot
Is all of this actually possible today? Absolutely! Chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence technology (or AI) and artificial intelligence has come a long way especially with the large tech players like Amazon and Google opening up access to their technology to the general public. Everything discussed in this article is not only possible, but is coming very soon.