What is a real estate CRM and why is it important for your business?

April 23, 2022

As a real estate agent, there are many responsibilities to handle, including hosting open houses, closing deals, generating leads, and marketing your business. Customers play a significant role in all of these tasks. A real estate CRM, also known as a customer relationship management system, can be very helpful for realtors when their workload increases due to a booming market.

A CRM for real estate can provide numerous advantages to you and your business. This guide will delve into real estate CRM systems, including their benefits and how you can integrate them into your practice.

What Is CRM in Real Estate?

A CRM in real estate is a customer relationship management system that maintains client information to enhance relationships, increase productivity, monitor lead generation campaigns, and more. Basically, the objective of a real estate CRM is to enhance client relationships to support business growth and expansion.

CRM for realtors is software that assists realtors with various daily tasks related to customer management. This includes marketing, sales, customer service, online commerce, and other aspects of the sales process. With a CRM, you can handle every stage of the customer journey, from lead generation to email communication with colleagues and vendors. In the next section, we will delve deeper into the topic of real estate CRM.

Understanding Real Estate CRMs

A real estate CRM enables realtors to effectively manage client relationships by collecting and organizing important client information in your lead database. This could include contact details, mailing addresses, and other personal information as required.

That way, all personal details will be collected and imported into the CRM system. The information will be organized according to the client’s preferences. So you can send targeted emails, provide new product information, furnish updates on transactions, and more.

Also, a realtor CRM is a comprehensive communication tool that tracks clients throughout their entire life cycle. It allows the marketing team to create targeted marketing campaigns, the sales team to make more accurate forecasts to increase profits, and the customer service team to effectively manage client relationships.

Components of CRMs Today

There are several key components of a CRM that can provide benefits to you and your business, such as:

Cloud-based software:

A real estate CRM is cloud-based. Information is stored on servers accessed over the internet, allowing data to be accessed from anywhere, anytime. It provides the flexibility to manage clients in-office or on the go with a reliable internet connection. CRM software can be used on smartphones and devices, providing 24/7 accessibility.
App integration:

When considering a real estate CRM for investment, examine its integration capabilities. Many CRM systems can seamlessly integrate with various business tools. Whether including document signing, surveys, billing, and other tools, to enhance operational efficiency and optimize workflow, go for it.
Artificial intelligence:

These days, artificial intelligence integrates into some CRM software. Now, they offer features such as built-in AI to assist with administrative tasks like data entry. This allows users to prioritize more important responsibilities like lead generation.

All in all, CRM for real estate is easy to use and can help you scale your business, improve productivity, and more. If you’re wondering whether you should invest in a real estate agent CRM, explore the benefits in the next section.

Benefits of Using CRM Software for Real Estate Agents

Real estate CRM software offers a host of benefits that can help you and your company. From optimizing workflows to personalizing marketing campaigns, take a look at some of the reasons why you should invest in real estate CRM below:

1. Optimize workflows

There’s a lot of information flowing around in the real estate industry—addresses, phone numbers, bills, emails, open houses—you name it. If you find yourself losing track of important information, a CRM for real estate can help. CRM can help you optimize your workflows by organizing information in a single platform that’s easy to use and highly accessible to you and your team.

2. Boost lead generation

Knowing how to generate leads is one of the top qualities of any successful real estate agent. Whether you’re just getting started in the industry or are a seasoned veteran, a CRM system can help you add more contacts to your database. A CRM system allows you to create reports to track leads and new opportunities.

If your CRM software has app integration capabilities, generating leads becomes even easier. By integrating website data or social media channels with your CRM, you can collect information on a client’s interests, behaviors, and demographics. From there, you can create targeted marketing campaigns to encourage them to convert from a lead to a client.

3. Automate business processes

Accounting, client management, email interactions, and phone calls are just some of the daily business processes that can be eating away from your valuable time. By taking away manual tasks, such as updating client information or importing data, you can boost workplace efficiency. CRM software can help you automate these business processes to allocate that time to more important tasks that can help you take your business to the next level.

4. Improve client relationships

One of the top functions of a real estate CRM is to help realtors improve client relationships. Often, it can be easy to become overwhelmed with the number of tasks to handle as a realtor. With that said, falling behind on emails, being late to a showing, or falling back on lead generation efforts can become easy.

A CRM for real estate can help you improve client relationships by collecting all relevant client information and organizing it in one platform. This way, all client communication gets directed to one area that’s easy to manage, so you can stay on top of emails and messages, as well as provide clients with new and engaging information that may be relevant to them. In turn, fostering your client relationships can boost trust, referrals, and brand reputation.

5. Enhance security

As a realtor, you have access to highly personal information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and finances. The last thing you want is a security breach or scam to leak confidential client information that puts your business in a difficult position. Rather than storing client information in filing cabinets or in easily accessible online platforms, invest in a CRM.

CRM software has enhanced security features to ensure personal information isn’t at risk. By storing information on the cloud, data is more difficult to access thanks to encryption and monitoring, and it’s backed up regularly to ensure information doesn’t go missing.

6. Personalize marketing

A key component to any real estate business plan is having a marketing and sales plan in place. CRM gives you the capability to create personalized and targeted marketing campaigns that can help convert leads into customers. With a CRM, you can build customer profiles, gain insights into social media interactions, collect data on the effectiveness of email campaigns, and more. By having access to key metrics, you’ll be able to make informed decisions based on real data that can help you make the right business decisions.

7. Boost productivity

No matter the business or industry you’re in, it can be easy to fall behind on projects and tasks. With so much to keep track of in the real estate industry, it’s important to have productivity systems in place to hold you accountable.

A real estate CRM can automate mundane tasks, keep important information organized, and keep confidential data secure. These crucial functions of CRM software free up time, so you can remain productive and allocate resources to more pressing issues, such as cold calling to find leads or creating top-tier marketing campaigns.

Wrapping Up: What Is CRM in Real Estate?

CRM in real estate is software that keeps track of client information in one central database to improve customer relationships and increase efficiency. There are plenty of reasons to invest in CRM for real estate, such as boosting productivity, creating targeted marketing campaigns, and automating business processes.

At Tom Ferry, our team of real estate coaches can provide you with real estate agent tools to help you grow your business and reach your goals. They can also provide information on useful productivity apps, local real estate market news and trends, and effective marketing strategies that can take your business to the next level.

Learn more about Tom Ferry’s real estate coaching programs — contact us today!