Improve Your Workflow with CRM and Transaction Management

A solid real estate customer relationship management (CRM) system should include transaction management that helps real estate agents not only manage their contacts, but also their transactions.

A CRM system is vital for agents who want to strengthen and nurture relationships with clients in addition to increasing their productivity overall.

In fact, there's a strong correlation between agent productivity and use of a CRM for real estate.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) confirms this trend, stating that the best way to keep your client flow steady is to develop a strategy using CRM.

Five years ago, close to 40% of agents used CRM (Hubspot). And, 95% of agents considered to be "top-performing" were among that percentage — underscoring the usefulness of CRM for real estate agents.

To find the most effective and budget-friendly real estate software suite for your business, you'll need to sort the "must-have" features from the features that are simply "nice-to-have."

Let's look at why a real estate CRM can help you grow and manage your business more efficiently — and more profitably — than ever.

Why You Need a Real Estate CRM to Keep It Together

What is CRM in real estate? Quite simply, it's the best way for agents to manage contacts, transactions, and team activities to keep their business running smoothly — and producing.

Realtor leads are a critical source of clients — and revenue — for agents. Because of their importance, most brokerage firms place significance on managing them.

But Realtors face obstacles other marketers don't, contributing to the development of very unique lead management practices. Three lead-management challenges that are specific to the real estate industry include the facts that:

• Real estate agents don't get repeat business from current customers — they get it from leads generated by those customers, so longterm relationship-building is critical.
• Referrals and listings are the main source of Realtor leads.
• The sales cycle is more drawn out, with varying lead involvement over several stages.

Because CRM is best when it dovetails with the unique requirements of an industry, the best CRM for real estate will be a system that provides targeted real estate agent tools.

Let's look at what makes effective, business-enhancing, real estate CRM software.

Real Estate CRM Software That Drives Real Results

We already know it's critical to invest in real-estate-specific CRM software, but let's explore the most relevant features to your investment.

Here are four features that are the backbone of any high-quality real estate CRM.

1. Contact Information and Data Tracking and Management

Contact management is an integral part of most real estate CRM, offering the ability to search basic fields. But game-changing real estate software will turn functionality up a notch by offering the ability to create unique fields for your business. This will further personalize your interactions with your clients and yield your company far better results.

Examples of custom fields include:

• Rank
• Status
• Other addresses
• Spouse/partner info
• Kids' birthdays
• Pets' names

Having this personal information at your fingertips — and being able to review it quickly before a client meeting — can result in a stronger relationship that leads to more referrals down the line.
And any Realtor knows that referrals are the life-blood of the industry.

This means that best CRM for real estate will feature a component that allows you to see the number of leads referred by each contact within the system. It also should track detailed notes and critical dates for every contact and transaction.

And, while reviewing this information in-office at the start of your day is an excellent way to stay on top of things, most agents are on-the-go from morning 'til evening. This means that if your CRM software has the ability to travel with you, it will be an incredible benefit!

If you want to be able to manage your real estate business anywhere, then you'll need a real estate CRM that offers an integrated mobile app. A good mobile app will allow you to:

• Access your contacts and vendors
• Access and update your planner, call, and task lists
• View, add, or update information to your CRM
• Work on any mobile device — from smartphone, to laptop, to tablet

Does your real estate CRM offer contact management with unique fields and a mobile app for on-the-go information retrieval and input? If it doesn't, then it's not going to give you the integration you need to stay ahead of the competition.

In conjunction with those critical features, your CRM must have a refined and detailed call list.

2. Highly Integrated Call Functions

Real estate agents are always on their phones, making it an important part of managing daily business and growing revenue.

Focused real estate CRM software will put emphasis on having an interactive call list for agents. This call list should allow them to immediately access the information of everyone that needs to be contacted, whenever they need it.

Besides providing a contact's information, your CRM should allow you to view notes on previous calls. You should also be able to add notes after the current call, and schedule a follow-up call.

If you're working with a team, it's important that you're able to see which calls are assigned to a team member, whether they were completed, and if they were reassigned.

For teams that do mass calling, it's best to choose a real estate software that provides seamless integration with an auto dialing system for convenience.

3. Document Transactions for Easy Referrals and Increased Productivity

Transactions in real estate are incredibly complex, requiring an agent to have outstanding attention to detail, accountability, and organizational skills.

That's why a good real estate CRM helps agents manage everything they need through powerful software that simplified tasks and collects all data in an accessible, easily managed, digital forum.

Intelligent real estate transaction management tools allow agents to:

• Customize listing or buyer templates
• Turn the templates into a transaction management checklist
• Record each action taken on the checklist as it is completed
• Show due dates, other team members involved in each action, and date/time-stamped notes
• Save digitally-signed transaction forms

Not only does this keep agents extremely organized and up-to-date with tasks, it allows them to easily find critical information at the click of a button.

Being able to instantly search for an appraiser's name on a specific contract or determine the closing date of another deal saves time and money.

4. Game-Changing Benefits for Teams

Creating a real estate team can allow diverse agents to combine skill sets for increased sales and revenue. But sometimes it's difficult to coordinate the transaction activities of several members, resulting in errors and lost productivity.

Good real estate CRM software will allow an administrator to add any number of team members and assign permissions for each, according to need — or strategy.

The team leader can oversee processes, assign full or limited access, and change access in a flash. Each team member should be able to have access customized to their role on the team.

An assistant, for example, might be able to follow everyone's transactions, while a buyer's agent might be allowed access to only their specific tasks, calendar, and leads.

The best CRM for real estate will always be able to work for teams structured in various ways. When the entire team is on the same page, fewer errors are made and more sales close!

You already know that the most successful agents are using real estate CRM software to get ahead of the game. If you want to join them, it's time to invest in the most impactful career decision you can make — purchasing a real estate CRM.

To view the original article, visit the Wise Agent blog.