4 Ways a Unified Communications Platform Can Benefit Your Real Estate Company
Today’s real estate agent must be prepared to respond to clients over multiple communications channels. Email, phone and text messaging are currently the most popular forms of communication for real estate agents, with 94 percent preferring email as one of their top communication channels, 91 percent using telephone and 90 percent using text messaging, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors. Additionally, 34 percent prefer instant messaging and 26 percent prefer postal mail.
The need to manage this diversity of communication channels illustrates one of the reasons real estate companies need unified communications (UC) platforms. Here are four other ways using a UC solution can benefit your real estate company, enabling you to acquire more prospects and make more sales.
Training Efficiency
Between email, phone, texting, instant messaging, mail and other media such as live chat and video chat, many real estate companies may be using five or more communication tools. Using this many tools can make agents feel overloaded by information, and runs the risk of important information getting lost as conversations move from one channel to another. It can also make training cumbersome as realtors try to master the nuances of multiple communication tools. Unifying your communications around a cloud contact center platform makes it easier for your team to master and manage your communications tools, since there’s only one tool to use. Today’s top contact center solutions provide training and coaching to help your team master your communications solution. By learning to use your communication solution efficiently, your real estate agents can handle more prospects and close more sales.
Convenience
A unified communications platform that integrates all your collaboration tools represents greater convenience for your real estate agents. Instead of having to remember many passwords and log into many tools, your team members only have to log into one centralized tool. When they log in, they will have access to information from all your communications channels, rather than having to go into each tool searching for distributed information. Your agents can access all the information they need from the convenience of their mobile device no matter where they are located.
Productivity
The convenience of unified communications platforms generates greater productivity for real estate teams. With less time spent learning to use tools, managing multiple log-ins and searching for information from multiple communications channels, agents are free to spend more time focusing on revenue-producing activity. They can contact more prospects, set more appointments, show more properties and close more property transactions. An overwhelming majority of workers are more productive when their company switches to a unified communications platform.
Cost
By unifying communications around a single platform instead of requiring you to use multiple tools, a UC solution cuts your company’s communication costs. There is less hardware to install and maintain, fewer software licensing and support fees and less usage charges. Hardware provisioning and software upgrades are managed from the cloud, significantly reducing communications costs. Together with the increased productivity generated by unified communications, this translates into a better return on investment and higher profit margins.
Training efficiency, convenience, productivity and cost are four factors that make unified communications platforms a good solution for real estate agencies. Making the switch to UC can empower your real estate agents to reach more prospects, generate more sales appointments and sell more homes.
