Does Real Estate Business need a proper CRM System? Real Estate CRM software is required because of the complexity of Sales Cycle, leads flowing in from many sources and involvement of more than one person in sales, mainly because of the high cost of Lost Opportunity. The cost of losing a Potential Customer, because of improper follow-up or incomplete sales process.
In Real Estate business, especially in India, cost of lost of opportunity is very high, plus the sales process is complicated and involves more than few people.
Does Real Estate need CRM in Market Boom or when it in recession mode? In fact both. In a boom market, there is an abundant flow of leads which need to be managed correctly and converted to sales, which is not possible without proper CRM system.
What about “Recession”, When the market is flat, each and every customer is important because buyers are less and every seller is scouting for buyers. The Seller with best approach and sales process will win the client. Hence CRM is required to manage whatever enquiries are flowing in and generating more enquiries.
Real Estate CRM companies should also have telephony integration (Call Center functionality) and mobile App, because most of their team members are going to be on the go.
What is CRM? BTW. Well for the uninitiated, CRM is a software solution, which helps you manage your Customers and all your interactions with your clients in one place. It will also assist in managing Sales process lifecycle. CRM helps you make sure that you don’t lose any enquiry, due to lack of (or improper) follow up. Real Estate CRM can also contribute to managing the documentation for Sales and payment collection follow-up (after sales)
CRM is beneficial for Real Estate Industry in Boom as well as recession.
How to Choose Real Estate CRM Software?
Lots of Real Estate CRM solutions are available in Indian Market, even there are plenty of CRM software for Real Estate Agents. How do you choose the rightreal estate CRM for your business?
- Lead Generation & Consolidation:
- A Good CRM will be integrated with Telephony, SMS, Website, Email so that you can generate leads for your company. Also, lead generated from all the sources including Real Estate Portals should be integrated right into CRM.
- Log Followup and Sales Steps:
- Real Estate CRM, should have the option to record all the follow-ups done from all the channels like calls, SMS, meetings, emails, website interactions, etc. CRM can also help to implement the Sales Process. In the case of lapse, it should generate escalations and alerts.
CRM solves the biggest challenge of Real Estate Industry which is Lead Consolidation and proper followup is
- Real Estate CRM, should have the option to record all the follow-ups done from all the channels like calls, SMS, meetings, emails, website interactions, etc. CRM can also help to implement the Sales Process. In the case of lapse, it should generate escalations and alerts.
- Property Listing & Customer Mapping:
- Nowadays Real Estate Companies have multiple projects running simultaneously at various stages of completion. Classification of different types of properties according to different criteria should be possible.
- Customisable Customer Profiling
- In no other business, the customer profiling is as important as in Real Estate Business. Real Estate CRM should be able to capture various customer profile parameters for the enquiries like area required, Budget, Location required, type of property required, whether for own use of investment, etc.
Proper Customer Profiling and Property mapping provided by CRM helps Real Estate Companies.
- In no other business, the customer profiling is as important as in Real Estate Business. Real Estate CRM should be able to capture various customer profile parameters for the enquiries like area required, Budget, Location required, type of property required, whether for own use of investment, etc.
- Sales Documentation and processing.
- Real Estate CRM should take care of legal documentation and other processes required in Real Estate Business. Real Estate CRM should also provide means of Document Management so that documents can be saved and retrieved whenever needed. It should also have a checklist kind of functionality to ascertain whether processes are being followed correctly or not.
- Payment Collection and reminders.
- In Real Estate Businesses, payments come in more than few instalments that too from various sources – like direct payment from Finance Companies. Also, most of the time Instalment Payment is linked to the progress of construction project, which the CRM system should map accordingly. Finally, the payment collection reminders and listing, so that Finance team can do the collection in time.
- Integrated Tele Caller Support.
- Nowadays even small real estate companies rely on Tele-Calling for generating leads and then managing them. Real Estate CRM should have integrated Tele Calling functionality, with integrated Call, SMS and Email support which includes automatic dialling, Incoming Call Popup, Call logging with recording, etc.
Real Estate Company cannot function without a Contact Center. CRM + Telephony is must.
- Nowadays even small real estate companies rely on Tele-Calling for generating leads and then managing them. Real Estate CRM should have integrated Tele Calling functionality, with integrated Call, SMS and Email support which includes automatic dialling, Incoming Call Popup, Call logging with recording, etc.
Here are some more Points to consider before buying Real Estate CRM Software
- Should support Sales as well as Leasing Business:
- Many Real Estate companies now create properties and sell them partially and balance property is leased out for generating a continuous flow of income. A good Real Estate CRM software should support both these Business Models.
- SMS/Email/Call/Website/Portal integration.
- Real Estate CRM cannot be complete in itself. It has to be connected to lots of other systems so that it can give optimum results. Social Media interaction is also desirable.
- Mobile App.
- In today’s world nothing is complete without Mobile App, how can a CRM system be left behind. Since in Real Estate Business significant section of the team is on the field, without Mobile App, CRM for Real Estate cannot exist. It should allow the creation of leads and logging sales follow-up. With support for call, SMS and email logging.
In India, Real Estate is considered most unorganised Industry. Mobile CRM is must.
- Secure and reliable:
- One cannot use CRM in a closed room. It has to be available anywhere, everywhere and anytime. A good Real Estate CRM software system cannot be unsecured or unreliable. CRM admin should be able to design the security of the system, by being able to define who will be able to access what. Two level Authentication is most desirable. (e.g., when anybody logs in CRM server, he is authenticated by OTP)
- Deployment options:
- According to Corporate IT Policy, the Real Estate Company may or may not want to go for SAAS or cloud model. So the CRM system should have both the options of deploying it on the cloud as well as the On-Premise solution.
- Dynamic Reporting:
- Any CRM is as powerful as the reports it can produce. A good CRM solution will support Dashboard reporting, User definable reports, reports scheduling & of course graphical reports.
- Flexibility in Design:
- You don’t do business for the sake of CRM; you buy CRM in the interests of business. So it’s the CRM which should be adaptable. It should be possible to create/modify fields/ screens/modules by Admin without the help of developers. No company will want to be dependent on developers even for updating few options in drop down.
- Workflows and Automation:
- There is no point in having a software which does not support automated processes, workflows and alerts. These workflows and processes help in implementing the quality process (control) and generating an alert in case anything goes wrong. Eg: If there is no response to lead in 2 hours, send an Email or SMS to Team leader.
- Integrate with ERP & other Systems
- A CRM is not an ERP, So it has to be able to connect to ERP to avoid duplication of work and necessity for frequent data reconciliation.
Most of Real Estate Companies use one or other ERP. CRM should integrate with that, Seamlessly.
- A CRM is not an ERP, So it has to be able to connect to ERP to avoid duplication of work and necessity for frequent data reconciliation.
2 thoughts on “How to choose Real Estate CRM Software”
When you select a crm for real estate business, then you need to look for a crm which is easy to use and easily managed your business.
100% correct. please spare some moments and visit http://www.enjayworld.com for CRM and Call Centre Solutions.