Your Guide to Client Retention Tools

According to a recent survey, 30 percent of Realtors' business comes from repeat clients. But because real estate has one of the longest sales cycle of any industry–buyers expect to stay in their home an average of 14 years, according to NAR–agents are faced with a dilemma that salespeople in other industries are not.

The challenge, of course, is how to engage clients long after a transaction closes so that they reach out to you when they're ready to buy or sell again. Fortunately, a new class of tools has emerged that empowers agents to do just that.

Client retention tools help agents stay in contact with current and past clients by offering information that's valuable to them. Solutions in this category take a wide variety of approaches to consumer engagement, and today we're going to look at three different solutions and how they accomplish this task. Each of these tools appears in our 2016-17 Technology Guide. Download it today to learn more about how to evaluate this category of real estate technology, and what questions to ask before purchasing.

Cloud Streams

We all know that consumers love property search portals. They're shiny and well-designed and they give consumers one-stop access to loads of useful property information. In theory, at least. In practice, agents know that portals are a wonderland of incorrect, outdated listing data and "Contact an Agent" buttons that lead consumers to Realtors other than you.

Cloud Streams looks to upend your clients' dependence on portals by offering them listing alerts that are faster and more accurate than any property search portal out there. This is because Cloud Streams relies on MLS data to deliver ultra-quick, ultra-accurate alerts.

Consumers can then click on those alerts to view the property in Cloud Streams' private search environment, where they can search for more properties, like or dislike properties, and communicate with their agents. Agents are able to view all of their clients' activity from within Cloud Streams in order to better understand what their buyers are searching for and to assist them in that search.

Cloud Streams' fast alerts and clean, modern aesthetic are designed to give consumers a superior alternative to portals, and provide agents a way of providing superior customer service. Top notch service is the first step in ensuring that clients remember you and want to work with you again. Clients who are interested in keeping a finger on the pulse of market activity in their neighborhood after their transaction is over can choose to keep receiving alerts. Because Cloud Streams is branded to you, the agent, this is a great way to keep your face and contact information in front of clients long term.

ePropertyWatch

A home is typically the biggest purchase that most people make in their lifetime. So it's safe to say that homeowners are more than a little interested in how the value of their property appreciates over time. It's this natural need to know that ePropertyWatch from CoreLogic taps into.

ePropertyWatch is a drip marketing solution that sends your past clients a monthly report on the value of their home and market activity in their neighborhood. The report includes things like a home valuation, nearby listings, sales, foreclosures, auctions, mortgage information and forecast analytics. The idea behind ePropertyWatch is to give homeowners the information they crave so that they won't, say, turn to another agent for a home valuation when they're thinking about selling again. ePropertyWatch campaigns are branded to you, putting your company in front of former clients on a regular basis.

CoreLogic really amped up the value that ePropertyWatch provides consumers last week when they announced a new partnership with Housefax. Now all ePropertyWatch reports will contain valuable information from Housefax like natural hazard risks, fire incidents, building permits, inspector alerts, and more.

Nest4Less

Nest4Less takes a more passive approach to providing useful information to consumers. Rather than sending alerts or emails, Nest4Less offers real estate professionals a directory of business services that embeds into their website and integrates with their Facebook business page.

Consumers can consult this directory when looking for home services professionals like like moving companies, contractors, electricians, landscapers and beyond. The idea is to make your website or Facebook profile a valuable source of information that homeowners will consult over and over. Nest4Less is free to agents and offers revenue sharing opportunities for brokers and MLSs.

For more information on client retention tools and advice on choosing the solution that's right for you, download our 2016-17 Technology Guide today!