The real estate industry thrives and will continue to do so because of the positioning housing occupies as a basic necessity for life and businesses. As a result, the commercial real estate industry sees a steady influx of competitors vying to score clients due to the real estate market’s viability.
Therefore, optimal customer relationship management (CRM) is a necessary tool to find success. It handles complex situations that hinder the ability to build relationships with many clients and close deals.
Previously real estate agents relied on Excel spreadsheets or contact managers like Outlook to manage databases. Although these are tried and true techniques, they simply don’t hold enough advantage for commercial real estate services in present times.
As a fix, current innovation has given rise to the intuitive Salesforce CRM software, which affords a holistic view of opportunities. Salesforce developers imbued the software with third-party tools and smart automation to manage client data and optimize key processes.
Commercial property managers leverage the intelligent automation of Salesforce CRM to create a robust business process while managing former clients and luring potential clients.
Salesforce CRM system holds significant benefits for property managers. Ignorance of the perks of this commercial real estate CRM keeps real estate agents stuck in recycling old methods. Therefore, to give up the old, less productive way of doing things, you might want to read through this article to grasp all the benefits of real estate CRM.
Overview of Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management functions as a tool for managing the relationship between companies and their clients. With CRM, companies maintain the connection with clients, fine-tune their organizational processes and position themselves for maximum profitability. CRM utilizes the principle of an optimal business relationship to bring about tremendous growth.
The commercial real estate Salesforce CRM helps real estate firms to manage contacts, oversee sales and monitor the productivity of their agents. It integrates data from multiple channels, which can be used to afford clients a personalized experience. All these add up to an improved customer experience which secures their continual patronage.
Benefits of Salesforce for Real Estate
Staying on top of your game in CRE and meeting your corporate goals requires rendering services in line with customers’ preferences. It entails providing the right kind of information and services that aids customer investment operations in a timely fashion. This hinges a great deal on establishing a solid relationship with customers.
Nevertheless, the busy schedule of real estate agents leaves little time for building concrete relationships with clients. One way to fix this is by having a CRM system with properly interrelated key processes like Salesforce CRM.
Using Salesforce for commercial real estate CRM has the following benefits:
1. Setting Up a Routine
The expansion of any real estate business depends on the weight of customers patronizing its operation. As a result, maintaining significant contact is crucial for the probability of a high sale.
However, maintaining contact implies being under your customers’ radar frequently as this impresses you upon their minds. Therefore, it makes you their go-to person to assist with their transaction processes with the aim of closing deals.
But how do you maintain this contact? Unarguably, staying in touch can be tedious, and it’s easy to forget some people when juggling a large number. Salesforce steps in here to assist with setting up a routine with reminders to coordinate client contact
For instance, you can set up a routine to call five different customers whose details are in your database daily. Doing this keeps you in touch with twenty-five clients daily and about 1,250 customers monthly.
Should 10% of these calls result in a business opportunity, then you’re sure of 125 transactions in a year which is good for the business.
Besides scheduling calls, Salesforce CRM also comes into play for organizing other vital processes like area surveys or price research. Doing this will undoubtedly keep you one step ahead.
2. Maximizing Follow-up Efforts for Healthy Customer Relationships and Retention
A poor follow-up culture is often the bane of many CRE firms. While it’s terrific to get referrals, follow-up is necessary for continual patronage. It is the responsibility of commercial real estate agents to turn referrals into leads.
Salesforce CRM is a reliable tool for setting up the how and when of contacting customers by utilizing email services or automated messages. A simple text once in a while could generate leads that build up to closing deals.
Undeniably, communication can wear down between commercial real estate agents and past clients. Their busy schedule could also further the loss of touch. However, it’s good practice to maintain contact with and not neglect past clients.
Salesforce CRM software is the right tool for customer retention. With the software, you can initiate a follow-up plan for each client, so you don’t ever go out of touch and miss out on potential deals.
Additionally, Salesforce CRM has a tracking and accountability feature that supports forming strong customer relationships. With it, you can keep track of appointments and conversations to quickly pick up from wherever you stop. This way, customers have access to a better service.
3. Automation of Marketing and Other Key Processes
Physically searching for leads is fast becoming obsolete in the real estate business. Not only is it stressful, but the chances of scoring leads aren’t exactly encouraging. Phasing this out is the concept of digital marketing. Interestingly, digital marketing can be made better by marketing automation. This is where Salesforce CRM software comes in.
With Salesforce CRM, commercial real estate agents can push digital marketing campaigns while riding on the back of email marketing. This software can send emails to customers in the database to generate leads. The emails can contain the firm’s newsletter or marketing report.
Besides marketing automation, Salesforce CRM finds application in the automation of other key processes in customer relationship management.
Salesforce can automatically complete forms, file important documents, obtain necessary files, set reminders for important days or activities, contact clients, etcetera. While Salesforce handles these tasks, you have ample time to take care of weightier issues.
4. Centralized Database
In rendering services in the real estate industry, it’s not uncommon to have a pool of information from multiple channels. These pieces of data can be client-based or property information. How do you deal with all this information?
Commercial real estate agents can rely on Salesforce CRM software to organize this wealth of information in a central location. Therefore, real estate agents can access a comprehensive overview of prerequisite information on tablets, smartphones, or laptops, enhancing customer service and increasing sales probability.
5. Generation of Referrals
The referral system is an essential success factor in the real estate industry. Satisfied customers go on to introduce new customers to commercial real estate agents so they too can equally get good services. The significance for real estate firms can’t be over-emphasized because, more often than not, it has been the source of new and robust transactions for realtors.
For this reason, managing customer relationships and paying attention to referral follow-up should be of significant concern to commercial real estate agents.
Nevertheless, as much as it’s terrific to receive referrals, commercial real estate agents can do better for their clients and collaborators. Customers might need some essential services for their properties, and real estate agents are in the proper position to give good referrals. Businesses that render these services could also benefit from such referrals.
Therefore, in addition to your customer and client information, data from other businesses and professionals can also form a part of the Salesforce CRM database.
Using this information, you can connect clients with necessary services like pest control, cleaners, florists, etcetera.
With Salesforce CRM software, you can reach out to these organizations to make them aware of the referral and schedule an appropriate time to enquire about how it went. These organizations can also return the favor by referring potential customers to your firm, so everyone wins.
6. Satisfactory Response Time
Timeliness never goes out of style. Due to the pressure that accompanies purchasing a property, clients will always have questions. In addition to having these questions, they’ll also want satisfactory answers from their real estate agents in no time.
Consequently, commercial real estate agents who can provide adequate responses have higher chances of being reached out to for future deals. They’re equally in line for referrals.
To respond promptly, real estate agents require the effective communication channel that Salesforce CRM software presents. Salesforce makes instant responses from different internet-enabled devices possible and reduces conflict with customers’ schedules.
Salesforce CRM can record automated messages customers receive when the real estate agent is indisposed. This automated message will highlight their current unavailability with a promise to give the appropriate feedback once they can.
Interestingly, these automated responses have better reception among customers than the “leave a message after the beep” prompt.
7. Forecast Sales and Score Leads to Excel Above Competitors
The real estate industry is considerably competitive like any other industry, such as the insurance industry. Real estate agents must always bring their best game and stay one step ahead if they want to beat their competitors to the prize. In this case, the reward is the clients and the possible deals they could bring.
Salesforce can manage databases, set up schedules and reminders, automate digital marketing etcetera. These features give commercial real estate agents an edge over competitors who lack these perks.
However, Salesforce CRM software can contribute in other ways to defeat the competition. Salesforce CRM can help real estate agents to forecast sales and score leads. It can give ample visibility to potential clients who will likely patronize your services.
Salesforce CRM can gleam this off a history of transactions, interests, and previous interactions, which it utilizes in future analysis to forecast the probability of sales.
Nevertheless, this trick isn’t a feature of standard Salesforce functionality. Instead, it’s found in association with extra marketing automation products like marketing cloud. These standard Salesforce functionalities are available after buying Salesforce licenses.
8. Integrating With Other Services and Third-party Tools and Customization
Social media is one service platform CRE can leverage on to record significant growth. Recently, there’s a widespread use of social media and dependence on it for spreading and receiving information.
How then can Salesforce utilize social media to benefit real estate firms?
Salesforce CRM software allows real estate agents to link their social media accounts or pages. Now, they can efficiently follow up with customers on social media by constantly updating them with detailed information.
Besides social media, Salesforce permits linking to third-party tools like data visualization software, collaboration portals, map search apps, property databases, etcetera.
Furthermore, Salesforce CRM software allows commercial real estate firms to set up a personalized system. This system helps these firms to avoid channeling finances to establish custom CRM software.
Personalization comes in the form of different customizations each firm deems necessary for its operations. Real estate firms can carry out system configuration, code customization, etcetera.
As a bonus, some of these customizations, such as creating custom views, can be done without a tech-savvy team. However, for more complex customizations hiring professionals would be in your best interest.
9. Predictive Analytics
Staying one step ahead comes with a thrill, but that’s not all there is to it. In an industry as competitive as the real estate industry, an ability to notice patterns and predict customer behavior puts you at a high point for success.
Salesforce commercial real estate CRM enables real estate agents to relate things they gleamed from the market with social signs on properties more likely to wind up in the market. This generates essential statistics.
Going further, you can predict your customer behavior by analyzing factors such as age, location, the frequency at which they use your service, etcetera. Knowledge of this pattern serves as a guide to delivering services that are the best fit for a particular time interval. As a result, you increase your chances of making sales.
Furthermore, Salesforce CRM can be used for in-depth analysis of sales trends and preparation of exception reports with various graphical representations of data.
10. Information Security
Salesforce real estate CRM software is home to tons of information. As a result, security is of paramount importance.
It’s not a good sight when sensitive information falls casually into the hands of all and sundry due to loopholes in a system. Specific information falling within the grasp of the wrong individuals can have negative consequences for commercial real estate firms.
To ensure safe and secure transmission of information within and outside the organization, Salesforce real estate CRM initiates varying permission levels. You can impose restrictions on certain information within a department or partners.
Therefore, individuals without due clearance to access such data can’t retrieve it unless granted permission. This restriction ensures that certain information isn’t accessible to most persons and guarantees privacy.
11. Increase in Conversion Rate
The goal of every real estate agent is to convert leads to sales as much as possible. This is the crux of all the hustle and bustle.
However, so much goes into trying to assist clients in either selling or purchasing a property. At the onset, it may be possible to have real estate agents on these tasks. Still, as the business expands, it starts to get overwhelming.
Therefore, if leads must be converted to sales, real estate agents will have to cut down on some tasks to focus on more critical aspects of getting the job done.
With commercial real estate Salesforce CRM, you can automate the excesses and get them tied up neatly to contribute to the steps that lead to closing deals. Salesforce can assist with tasks such as sending emails, setting reminders, and coordinating with referrals.
Automating these aspects of commercial real estate supplies you with ample time to tackle other key elements to optimize sales.
Conclusion
The commercial real estate industry keeps getting fiercely competitive and will continue to do so. Therefore, to stay on top, it’s pertinent to prioritize customer relationship management because a business lacking a substantial clientele will probably fail.
Customer relationship management assists commercial real estate firms to maintain adequate contact with clients. It also helps in enhancing their critical processes and clears the ground for recording great success.
However, you might want to use the right tool to practice customer relationship management. Salesforce commercial real estate software is an innovative step for real estate agents. This intuitive software has the capacity for managing contacts, optimizing sales, and monitoring the progress of real estate agents.
Interestingly, it has excellent benefits for commercial real estate firms. These benefits span creating schedules, marketing automation, securing information, and increasing conversion rate.
Therefore, commercial real estate firms with a thirst to succeed and dominate their field of service delivery might want to get on board with Salesforce CRM software and rip its many benefits.
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