When it comes to hard work, there will always be room for improvement. Those little quality of life improvements that make your work more efficient, faster, and easier for you. The real estate market recently had one of those breakthroughs in the form of CRM, or Customer Relationship Management.
Using real estate CRM can most definitely revolutionize how you do business and how that business fares thanks to many neat little touches that simply make the world a little less complicated. Before diving into the reality of CRM, though, there are some questions that beg asking.
1. Is It Functional?
As with any new piece of equipment, you’ll need your CRM to be functional and ready to go. You will most likely be spending some funds on this little system, so try to make sure that you’re getting what you’re about to pay for. You can do this by asking a CRM provider representative about what it is that you’re getting, or you can just do some independent research of your own. It’s never a bad idea to research, after all.
2. Is It Easy to Use?
A CRM is meant to make life easier, not more stressful and complicated. You need to make sure that the system is simple and intuitive. Hopefully it will be presented in a way that all employees will be able to understand it while greatly improving their work. At the end of the day, you can’t ask for much more than that, right?
3. Is It Easily Accessible?
As a real estate agent, you may be faced with a situation that calls for all of your knowledge on a given client or opportunity unexpectedly. This is why accessibility is so important. Naturally, you can attempt to memorize all of that information yourself, but that is hardly as efficient as simply pulling up the CRM on your phone or tablet. Being able to access your information from anywhere is a huge draw to CRM for many people, and for good reason, too.
4. Is the Customer Support Reliable?
While CRMs are great, nothing is perfect. Sometimes, you may have to reach out to customer service in order fix whatever issue you may be having or answer any concerns that may arise. When talking to customer service, they should be helpful, knowledgeable, and kind.
These are necessary qualities that lead to problem solving, and if your CRM seems to just stop working, then that’s a big problem that you will need to be fixed as soon as possible. If you do not feel confident in the service that you receive from customer service, then that’s a huge negative mark on the service’s overall assessment and might just lead you to taking your business elsewhere.
5. Is It Contractually Reasonable?
Contracts are always a little scary, aren’t they? Sometimes they are beneficial to you, while others may be increasingly harmful to your business. That’s never good, so it’s a good idea to really comb through any contractual agreements that you are presented with. Ask yourself if it’s an easy contract to get out of with relatively little trouble.
Also, does it force you to pay for something that you don’t really want to use? Both of these issues are red flags, and there are quite a few more that you might be able to come up with if you look closely. This is what you should do for most, if not all, business contracts.
