Real Estate CRM Software: Workable Tips to Get Your Seamless Match

Beyond any doubt, real estate businesses deal with substantial, complex, and unique purchases for various clients, which explains why being a top realtor requires the capability to address tons of information and grasp clear ideas about what their clients and prospects need from the very first beginning. Notwithstanding that, nowadays, the burden of processing and handling such a vast amount of data gets relieved thanks to the emergence of more and more real estate CRM software.

Whether you are a newbie within the real estate landscape looking for a powerful platform to manage your contacts or a seasoned professional who wish to streamline your workflow while also gaining a holistic view of your clients’ touchpoints, the truth of the matter is: you definitely need a CRM software for your real estate business.  

Whereas there exists a plethora of CRM solutions – which may “throw you for a loop”, fortunately, you don’t have to walk the purchase journey alone! Let’s hit the ground running and yield your 2020 success with a couple of workable tips as well as a hand-picked list on the top real estate CRM software!

Key Software Features Realtors Should Look For

Before delving into specific “properties” of a winning CMS software, it’s more than crucial to first go through the needs – the truly unique ones – of a real estate business.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a long-term strategy focusing on CMS stands as the best way to generate and maintain a steady flow of clients. Nevertheless, rather than making spur-of-the-moment decisions and expecting immediate outcomes, as a top realtor, you need to “organize your brain” and plan the CRM. Since it’s a belly-to-belly business, it’s the NAR advise that you treat sales as a marathon and not a sprint: Results will come in months rather than days or weeks.

Furthermore, typically, the real estate business will have at once B2B and B2C traits – and small business and large enterprise dynamics. Thus, it’s imperative that you put them into perspectives and consider some key points:

• Leads are mostly driven from referrals and listings
• There is hardly a repeat business per one certain client
• Client servicing is more akin to the personal touch of B2B
• There exists long lead-to-conversion time
• Types of customers widely vary, cutting across various income levels

Whether you’re talking about a residential or commercial real estate, if you are in the real estate sphere, you’re not making the typical sales pitch, thereby you will not prefer the typical CRM tool but the best real estate CRM software. To address the unique industry aspects and establish a sustainable yet rewarding real estate business, be 200% sure that you bear these handy attributes in mind when picking your own CRM software!

#1. Robust Contact Management Features

When it comes to thriving real estate businesses, it refers to successful relationship management – since contacts are vital to your sales performance, let’s put this feature the top priority. After all, first and foremost, any CRM software should have a strong contact management platform that can be customized to categorize persons by referring agents, partners, competitors, leads, and clients.

Additionally, the workable software should be one that allows you to segregate clients into further subcategories. For instance, it’s possible to classify clients as cold and warm leads, current and past clients, or satisfied and highly satisfied clients – such tags are critical when making a ranked referrer tier to generate more leads. Let’s say, when dealing with new clients in an area, you can tap your CRM for highly satisfied ones in that location to back your pitch or lump the cold leads in one small meeting to minimize cost. On the contrary, you should treat your warm leads to a personalized one-to-one meeting.

Anyway, selling houses is not like selling magazines – it takes a great extent of trust and possibly many months before you close the deal. Thus, what you need is patience along with a robust real estate CRM platform that enables you to stay super-organized and on-the-ball when it comes to your contacts. Below are some contact management features that you may desire:

• Offer several fields to maximize the information you can enter
• Be highly customizable
• Have automated reminders that you can preset

#2. Great Customer Service Support

As already discussed, you need referrals so as to thrive in real estate sales and to get those, you need to build out a stellar reputation. One of the best roadmaps to obtain that solid reputation is by providing excellent customer service and support.

To close a satisfying deal, you have to deliver the buying experience as smooth and problem-free as possible for your clients, while also tackling all of the details and any other headaches that can crop up during the complicated process of buying a home, for example.

So, which particular customer service features make your CRM software a powerful one? Let’s see!

• A module specifically for customer support
• Case management
• Automated reminders for tasks
• Cloud-based (so you can access it anywhere, anytime)

#3. Powerful List Management

In addition to contact management and customer services, listings are another “bread and butter” of your real estate success.

A viable CMS solution should allow you to customize database fields to form a list or lists based on offers, deals, dates, third parties, events, commissions, and transactional stage. Likewise, it should enable you to generate or attach service reports, property details, and transaction documents in sync with the listing.

After all, it’s a “must” that you get comprehensive lists with relevant and important documents attached to it, which will not only give you a quick overview of all your dealings but also let you effortlessly monitor your progress.

#4. Handy Email Marketing Platform

Whilst social media is the toast of today’s CRM, real estate can benefit more from email marketing. In fact, the sales process for real estate relies on email marketing perhaps more than any other sales profession. Hence, you’d better off having a sales CRM that doesn’t just organize your contacts and set your calendar but also manages some of the email marketing work for you.

Understanding that, let’s look for a real estate CRM with the following features (or at least it allows you to create these):

• Pre-designed drip email campaigns for various contacts ( for those who not in the know, drip email is a funnel system, where users can send an autoresponder at first (for instance, when a user subscribes to your newsletter you send an auto “Thank You”), then a series of personalized emails that funnel the recipient into agreeing for an ocular inspection or, even a purchase.)
• Monthly real estate newsletter
• A bank of email templates with industry-specific marketing keywords like “just sold” or “just listed”
• Full design customization

Top Real Estate CRM Software For 2020

#1. Freshsales

Emerging as the fourth addition in the Freshdesk product lineup, Freshsales is a quality CRM designed for high-velocity teams to keep track of contacts while smoothly addressing their inquiries. Based on Freshsales’s client experience, this CRM is embraced as the single contact management hub that allows them to stay in control of thousands of leads – and at the same time, provides a simple and easy-to-navigate interface.

Not only is it a winning solution to handle multiple aspects of the sales process, but Freshsales can also be extremely helpful when it comes to eliminating the need for users to wander around programs to get the job done. At its core, the cloud-based Freshsales has collated all functions of legacy CRM systems, while also finding its own way to optimize sales and prioritize pipeline opportunities.

Outstanding Features for Realtors:

Direct Calls

With a built-in phone feature, Freshsales is amongst the rare systems that allow calls to be directly transferred to it, without involving any hardware or software installations for the purpose. Thanks to that, its users do not have to waste money or time migrating data to this system so as to follow the history of their conversations, assign numbers or notes to their contacts, or call them automatically. Another noteworthy point is that this CRM does also employ an auto-dialer, route calls, create personalized welcoming messages, ID their callers, and track the performance of the reps who are receiving those calls.

Email Tracking

This CRM presents realtors the possibility to see who has opened their emails, and who has ignored them, which stands the best practice of discovering who is a qualified lead and should, therefore, be prioritized for nurturing. Another appealing feature is that Freshsales allows sending bulk emails drafted on personalized templates, schedule those and sync them with your calendars as well as relate them automatically to your contact records to export all relevant information. Additionally, the system is particularly selective when it comes to depicting metrics, which means it will spot all relevant details in the email without you triggering a single action for the purpose!

Lead Management

When it comes to classifying and tracking leads, Freshsales adopts AI-based lead scoring and actually performs an excellent job regarding contact management, leveraging the 360 degrees-view on all conversations and relevant details, together with the advanced differentiation between pending, won and lost deals. Also packed with notifiers, the system makes sure that you will never forget an appointed meeting/task, among which the jot down notes and comments.

Sales Management

Freshsales is foremost a sales CRM, hence, it is worth noting that the system offers full visibility on all stages of the sales process. As you move up the deal ladder, Freshsales will make it easy to sort and filter close dates, distinguish bestsellers, and make sudden changes for all actions. It is also where the system’s handy drag-and-drop navigation is most useful: in just a few seconds and with few moves, you can effortlessly customize follow-ups, analyze wins and losses, identify trends, or spot bottlenecks that have been slowing your performance down.

Analytics & Reporting

A notable highlight of this cloud-based real estate CRM software is not only how it receives information, but also the array of possibilities it offers for users to manage all data garnered. Coupled with the suite of default reports (such as pipeline, territory, email reports, and much more), crafting custom reports for every unique contact, deal, or opportunity is possible. Recently, Freshsales’s teams also expand their modern analytic suite with sales activity and trendline reports, which grant users an even clearer and more holistic picture of how their sales strategies are progressing.

Pricing Plans:

There are five pricing plans that Freshsales offers for both SMB and enterprise. It offers a FREE FOREVER startup plan and also has a 21-day free trial for the other plans so that you can easily try out all key features of the software with no credit card required.

• Sprout: Free forever
• Blossom: $12/user/month
• Garden: $25/user/month
• Estate: $49/user/month
• Forest: $79/user/month

#2. Pipedrive

Amongst the top players within the CRM software category, Pipedrive is considered the best performing CRM and sales pipeline management system for real estate businesses. The renowned CRM software takesthe lead in gathering disparate information, producing a trustworthy organized source of knowledge as you visualize how things stand with your leads and work out what more could be done to conclude the negotiations.

Outstanding Features for Realtors:

Powerful sales management

With the sales pipeline methodology that is built into, all of your deals will be displayed according to different sales stages, allowing you to have a clear overview of your sales pipeline while also tracking the progress of your team and check which deals should be pushed. Additionally, picking this CRM, you can become a better closer with the app’s Timeline View which helps to select the right deals and activities to focus on. With solid hosting infrastructure together with nightly backups in multiple locations, Pipedrive is also regarded as a highly secure app that is trusted by thousands of customers around the globe.

Well-organized lead collection

Another catchy feature of this system is its minimalist layout, which facilitates lead management, and so do the seemingly infinite configuration possibilities. In particular, Pipedrive collects contact information utilizing customizable Web Forms, which can be either placed directly on the user’s website or newsletter or created manually within the Settings section. Plus, a myriad of CRM and contact management integrations do allow the user to import leads from other systems, regardless of how huge they are.

Extended customization

With Pipedrive as your future CMS platform, you can customize literally everything – actually, it’s possible to add customized fields to modify your sales pipeline stages according to your specific business needs – or even, turn on and off whole modules with just one click. When it comes to communicating with clients, you will be granted access to a variety of modern editing filters to personalize messages, or share/publish files you think would be relevant for your colleagues.

Statistics and Reporting

Quite similar to Freshsales, Pipedrive also offers top-notch features concerning statistics and reporting. Particularly, the most helpful tabs in this system are Statistics, which can be linked to the dashboard and presented to other colleagues for a better understanding of critical metrics. There, you will be able to follow the performance of individual agents, the value of each separate deal, or the history of every lead. More significantly, critical comparisons amongst metrics – such as the one between closed and lost deals – are empowered, which is attributable to recent improvements conducted in the system. In terms of reporting features, this CMS platform owns the capacity to store all conversations as well as other relevant information in a centralized database, from where you can export it to other systems, or use your own app to pull out detailed summaries.

Quick deal closure

In addition to easy deal entry, Pipedrive offers an advanced Activity Scheduler, which simplifies the tasks of planning events and appointing meetings in your calendar with no risk of double entries. Should you then be a Pipedrive user, let’s make sure you familiarize with the Mail tab – since it is where all of your emails will be synced, and from where you can forward documents and close specific deals with contacts that are not displayed on your Pipedrive list. Also, the bulk editing feature has been redesigned, which enables you to modify several fields at ones as well as gives you the freedom to pick colors and symbols you expect contacts to understand.

Pricing Plans:

As regards pricing aspects, Pipedrive is available in four SMB and enterprise pricing plans. All payment plans offer a free 14 days trial, and provide you the possibility to use the app free for 2 months is you decide to pay on an annual basis.

• Essential: $15/user/month
• Advanced: $29/user/month
• Professional: $59/user/month
• Enterprise: $99/user/month

#3. LionDesk

As a CRM designed specifically for real estate professionals, LionDesk serves as an all-in-one management platform that realtors, teams, agents, brokers, and lenders can employ to improve their operations, boost drip campaigns, and of course, supercharge client interactions.

LionDesk aids real estate professionals by streamlining their follow-up process, organizing their leads, prospects, and clients, and providing them with the opportunity to close more deals or sales, while also offers unique sets of marketing and transaction management tools.  

Outstanding Features for Realtors:

Unique communication features

LionDesk boasts a key couple of memorable features that are not present in other customer relationship management platforms, which include video email and video texting. Through these functionalities, its users will be able to send out video emails and video text messages to a specific contact – these messages can be crafted into templates that are created for drip campaigns, and users can send them out as mass emails and mass texts to a contact list.

Furthermore, with a built-in video recorder, the creation of video emails and video texts can be done automatically, which is accessible within the Communications section of the platform. Plus, video emails and video texts can be tagged, so that users will be able to search them easily. They can be adopted to personalize the sending of property information to clients, particularly when it comes to promoting a listing or providing tips to potential ones.

Ease of use

Based on many users’ experience, LionDesk is easy to use straight out of the gate – you can actually set up in less than an hour and start engaging from day one. Furthermore, the CRM enables its users to automatically import their leads from third-party lead sources, which then allows them to automatically respond to their clients. To be more concise, real estate agents can import their leads from Zillow, Trulia, Reator.com, or IDX websites – LionDesk will route their leads from these sources and then integrate them into the drip campaigns they set up within the system.

“LionDesk has changed my business! My follow up is phenomenal and my realtor partners know it. My campaigns make it easy and streamlined to stay in touch. To get them on the phone, to follow up on paperwork, reminders like do’s and dont’s during the mortgage process, pre-approved buyer, past client, and mortgage checkup keeps me on point and top of mind. The daily activity email reminds to call. Don’t get me started on the mass video text and video email! I don’t even know what I was doing before! There’s no way to manage a big pipeline without this! Too many similar names and clients to keep up! LionDesk is a must!” – Carol Escobar, the mortgage professional at New American Funding.

Pricing Plans:

LionDesk provides these different pricing plans, each with a 30-day free trial for all users:

• Starter: $25 /month or $250 billed annually
• Pro+: $49 /month or $499 billed annually
• Elite: $99 /month or $999 billed annually

#4. IXACT Contact

Founded in 2007 and a sister company of Morris Real Estate Marketing Group, IXACT Contact is well-known as an easy-to-use web-based real estate CRM that lets real estate agents stay organized and build lasting relationships with past clients, hot prospects and important referral sources. Being a CRM purpose-built for real estate business, IXACT Contact is an ideal platform that consolidates contact management, constant engagement tools, and lead management features – which makes it easy to stay in touch with clients in a way that’s personalized, relevant and timely.

Outstanding Features for Realtors:

Simplified Contact Management

Choosing IXACT Contact to be your future solution, you can effortlessly organize your contacts’ information in a singular place, enabling you to gain a complete overview of customer profiles at a glance – and ss such, you are always ready to tailor your approaches and services to every customer. Going through profiles is also a pleasant task, as the solution has a visually pleasing user interface. What is also worth noting is that the layout on the dashboard is very intuitive and easy to understand: rather than using weird proprietary names for their tools, there present clear categories to navigate – Business Pipeline, Task List, Calendar, Mass Email, Letters & Labels, to name a few.

Furthermore, such a platform can integrate with Google, Outlook as well as other solutions to make it easier for you to capture leads. Thanks to that, you stand every chance of building and strengthening your contacts database with the help of your existing investments.

Contact Communication & Intelligence

Beyond any doubt, timing is key in winning over new customers and repeat businesses. That is why IXACT Contact has an intelligence module that specially designs a “Keep in Touch” dashboard to tells you when is the right time to keep in touch you’re your prospective clients. For instance, the CRM keeps you posted of notable events such as birthdays, anniversaries, and more so you can communicate with clients and show them your personalized service on those days. By sending out emails and by calling them, you can nurture leads until they are mature for conversion.

In addition to wise contact communication features, IXACT Contact lets you have a bird’s eye view of what is happening to your entire pipeline. Since it offers a host of visual graphs and charts that let you digest information at a rapid pace, you can adjust your business approaches on the fly smartly.

Handy Email Marketing

Along with a fully customizable dashboard and robust contact organization tools, IXACT Contact does offer great marketing tools, typically email marketing. Using IXACT Contact, you can send mass emails to contacts based on whatever criteria you choose – and also create new, adopt and personalize IXACT Contact’s pre-written email drip campaigns to appeal more directly to the people in your sphere.

Long gone are the days when crafting attractive newsletters was considered a specialized task for designers – with the help of IXACT Contact, you will be able to send visually appealing email communications every month. Plus, these newsletters are automated, which affords you more time nurturing your contacts.

Pricing Plan:

When it comes to its subscription price, IXACT Contact has a simple enterprise pricing that starts at $33 per month. Whereas they do not have a free version, there presents a free trial for you to try out the services.

BONUS

#5. Contactually

Emerged as a web-based customer relationship management tool specifically designed for real estate professionals, Contactually defines itself on helping its users discover the potential business they are missing in their existing sphere of influence. The platform even goes as far as claiming that the majority of real estate agents are missing out on up to 30% of the gross commission income (GCI) potential from their existing sphere.

Contactually’s main aim is to offer advanced communication management features to relieve users from the company’s usual wasted time that usually comes from the execution of routine and cumbersome communication tasks. In addition to an easy-to-use and well-built interface, Contactually’s email automation is top-notch.

To be more particular, this web-based CRM enables its users to import contacts to the system, sort, segment, and organize them into unique “buckets”, and then create certain programs and pipelines that you can employ to automate chain mails, together with various activities. At that stage, you get to have an extensive library of nurturing content, and even the assistance of a trained professional who can empower you to distribute personalized and on-point emails. Additionally, bulk messaging is another option you can trigger during this process so that you’d save even more time.

#6. Follow Up Boss

Should you be in search of a CRM platform that accommodates team needs, then Follow Up Boss is going to be your seamless match.

Actually, Follow Up Boss trumps those add-ons with a platform designed specifically for teams, which prioritizes lead and contact organization with a team in mind, and makes marketing and outreach trackable and assignable.

Regarding relationships as the most important for realtors, the AI-powered CRM platform does combine the best data-driven business tools so thus you can nurture your relationships by working smart and automating where appropriate while being always communicating in your own voice.

Whilst Follow Up Boss seems to be pricey compared to its competitors – starting at $69 per month, it allows for multiple users per account. If you are the leader of a team or even a brokerage, Follow Up Boss should be on your radar.

#7. Wise Agent

If you are looking for a real estate CRM software with great automation options and especially comprehensive support included with every package, Wise Agent turns out to be the best fit for you.

With 24/7 support, 365 days a year, and a real person on demand, any of your concerns will have someone literally always someone ready to address. No matter how negligible this feature may seem to be, this turns to be an amazing thing for those who are currently new within the real estate sphere.

Furthermore, Wise Agent is highly rated as a powerful all-in-one CRM for realtors, which empowers realtors to manage every area of their businesses in one place by offering seamless transaction management, advanced automation, time management tools, and a central database for all of your client information.

#8. Propertybase

Another fantastic tool is Propertybase – a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management and integrated marketing solution that caters to Real Estate brokers in businesses of all sizes.

For real estate agents who wish to have a single platform to control all their marketing and lead outreach activities, then Propertybase will be your favorite site that lets you list, manage, and promote your properties in one main dashboard. Through the platform, not only can you control how your listings will look and where they are displayed, it’s completely possible to aggregate listings from multiple listing sites into one search.

When it comes to lead scoring, in addition to the common CRM features of lead score evaluation to offer realtors a brief glance at a lead profile, Propertybase also allows you to adjust the criteria for that lead score, and certainly not with the granularity and detail that Propertybase offers. Besides, with Propertybase, you are also able to establish visually stunning websites that are directly connected to your CRM – and appealing digital front to make sure you never miss a lead!

The Bottom Line

CRM is proving to be an invaluable tool in almost every single business arena all around the world – and the real estate sphere is definitely not an exception. Whether you are just a newcomer or a seasoned professional within this landscape, digitalizing your workflows with a smart real estate CRM software is going to a powerful practice to fast forward your success.