The Most Overlooked Part of a Real Estate Contact Management System

What part of a real estate contact management system do you think people overlook the most? Its real estate newsletter? Its email template library? Its ability to group and search contacts? Run reports?

Well, not quite...

From our experience, the most overlooked part of a real estate contact management system is the contact screens.

Now, you may be wondering, "Why do contact screens really matter? Other features like smartphone sync or transaction management capabilities have to be more important, right?"

In some cases, yes. But from a usability standpoint, contact screens are very, very important and can actually make the difference between liking and using a real estate CRM and hating it and never using it.

Let us tell you why.

The contact profiles in your contact management system are something you see, and have to work with every single day, often multiple times a day.

Poor contact profiles lacking fields like birthdates, spouse and children information, anniversary dates, and interests make it nearly impossible to "wow" your contacts and build those important, lifelong relationships.

For instance, how would you know when to wish Jane a Happy Birthday or remember that she's an avid tennis player?

But contact screens are important for another reason, too.

Many real estate contact management systems have horrible layouts for each contact profile. Key information is hard to find, the fields are not in a logical order, you have to navigate through multiple screens just to find contact information for one person, and more.

So when you use a CRM with poorly designed contact screens, over time it becomes a burden and hassle to use the system. Every time you add a contact it can be a cumbersome or time consuming process.

Many people get used to it and simply don't realize how much easier it can be working with a CRM that has great contact profiles.

So, if you're in the market for a real estate contact management system, yes, evaluate its big features like its activity plans, real estate newsletter, and website lead capture, but don't neglect contact screens. They're not insignificant like you might think!

To view the original article, visit the IXACT Contact blog.