Did you know that ShowingTime is now part of ShowingTime+, a software suite that helps agents, brokers and MLSs streamline their businesses and deliver elevated experiences to their customers by combining existing solutions from ShowingTime and dotloop, along with introducing new solutions like Listing Media Services and the forthcoming Listing Showcase? Be sure to bookmark the ShowingTime+ homepage (showingtimeplus.com) to stay up to date on the latest offerings we provide to simplify your workflow.
Longer days and warm weather are finally here, and most of us are eager to get out and enjoy a well-deserved day out of the office. But the ongoing surge in home buyer demand, while a welcome sight for most agents, is a mixed blessing for those who were looking to unplug and unwind.
While technology can be a great tool for freeing up time to get out of the office, it can also provide a tempting excuse for some to bring the office with them – a major distraction indeed.
It may sound strange coming from the industry’s leader in showing management technology, but our philosophy from day one has been that the most effective real estate technology is that which needs only a minimum amount of user interaction. Put another way, we believe that technology should serve as something of a silent partner, doing most of the heavy lifting behind the scenes, not a needy one that only replaces existing burdens with new ones.
To highlight a few examples of how the right solutions can help you disconnect from the grind while still keeping your business going, check out these four tips for declaring your own independence from the office.
Leverage a Real Estate Call Center to Schedule Showings on Your Behalf
For as much as technology has transformed residential real estate, some aspects have remained the same. Of them, the ease and personalization of a phone call to a live person to schedule a showing has endured. For agents, this presents an obligation to be available to answer calls and confirm the appointment, even on nights and weekends. The time commitment this responsibility represents shouldn’t be understated.
That’s where a real estate call center (or appointment center) comes in. When supported by the right technology and staffed by professional appointment specialists, such a service can dramatically reduce your workload. With Appointment Center by ShowingTime+, for example, appointment specialists schedule and confirm appointments, request feedback and more, removing multiple time-intensive tasks that would otherwise fall on you.
Automate Feedback Requests
Feedback management can seem like a part-time job unto itself, especially when business is brisk. Listing agents know that timely, quality feedback is essential for helping clients get the most for their home and with minimal delay. But buyers have different priorities and getting any response – much less a meaningful one – can be inordinately time-consuming.
This situation is where automated feedback requests can be a major time-saver.
ShowingTime’s showing management services offer a host of features to streamline feedback management, including options to automatically request feedback from buyers if no feedback is received as well as an option to automatically send feedback to clients (of course, agents are always given complete control over whether or not a client receives feedback, but some agents appreciate the option to have it automatically sent).
Bonus: With the Appointment Center, Front Desk by ShowingTime+ and, in select markets, ShowingTime for the MLS, you can also customize feedback to make sure you’re asking prospective buyers the questions you think will help your sellers the most.
Delegate Message Taking
Showing requests may represent a lot of the calls an agent may receive, but they’re far from the only kinds of calls the average agent must handle. Not only do agents have a responsibility to field those calls when they come in – which, like for calls pertaining to showing requests, can come at decidedly inopportune hours – they must also log the messages for future reference and, if relevant, for sharing with other staff or team members.
A message taking service like ShowingTime Live Connect can be a solution to remove the dual burdens of both being available to field calls as they come in (ShowingTime Live Connect provides live specialists to take calls on your behalf) as well as having to log messages for easy retrieval (which ShowingTime Live Connect specialists do for users). With ShowingTime Live Connect, users can receive notifications of messages by call, text or email for whenever they’re ready to come back to work, giving them the flexibility to cut the cord without the guilt of missing important calls.
Empower Clients with Technology Tailored to Their Needs
Keeping in regular contact with clients to keep them updated on the status of their home(s) and answer any questions about the process is a vital part of being a good agent. In meeting that expectation, however, agents can quickly become overwhelmed with the time-consuming game of phone tag that can result.
Here we find a situation in which clients can be the beneficiary of technology. With a solution like Home by ShowingTime, clients working with an agent who uses ShowingTime gain a helpful tool that offers an overview of many relevant details they might otherwise have to reach out to you to confirm. For sellers, they can use Home by ShowingTime to receive notifications of new showings and feedback, as well as ‘Showing Complete’ alerts. Buyers, meanwhile, can view their showing tour for upcoming showings, complete with appointment details, driving directions and more.
While each correspondence to share these details may itself represent only a few extra moments of an agent’s day, together they can take up a lot of time. Home by ShowingTime, like all of ShowingTime’s offerings, is designed not to replace an agent’s role in the buying and selling process, but to enhance and streamline it to make each step efficient.
Whatever the season, whatever the reason, ShowingTime+ offers solutions that help real estate professionals dramatically cut down the amount of time they need to spend to make their business flourish. Our Sales Team can work with you to determine which service is right for your specific needs. Click the button below to start your conversation today!
