Before we get to explain a real estate chatbot, we’d like to see what a chatbot is. A chatbot or a chatterbot is an artificial intelligence (AI) software application that can simulate a conversation with a user.
A Real Estate chatbot allows you to offer your clients something more personal and engaging. It’s hard to tirelessly respond to the same questions about renting, properties, selling, etc., over and over every day, right? That’s why real estate chatbots were designed.

Why do you need Chatbots in Real Estate?

According to a 2017 survey, the first step for someone who wants to buy a house or an apartment is to search for properties online.
You and your customers need a real estate chatbot because it provides:

1. Inquiry in real-time

A real estate chatbot can help the users who land on your website and answer their questions
immediately. No need for them to wait for assistance from a human agent to give them the information they’re looking for. Isn’t that awesome?

2. Round-the-clock availability

We are humans. We can’t be available round the clock, 365 days a year. However, with a real estate chatbot, it’d seem like you are always available for your customers to help them out! It can easily outperform human agents in terms of speed and accuracy.

3. User Specific

Your customers are different, looking for different properties based on their needs and/or the amount of money they can spend. A real estate chatbot can provide what your customers want by probing them with questions and interactively offering relevant information.

4. Better Engagement

There was a time when we would give our customers endless forms to capture what kind of properties they wanted. Where would the papers go after? Exactly! Most of them would end up in the trash can. Although they slowly got replaced with online forms, they were still forms, and forms are not that easy to fill out.
With chatbots in real estate, customers can engage on a real-time basis, responding to their queries and, at the same time, collecting information about their preferences.
Your chatbot will know what your customers are looking at or looking for. It will easily predict what options your customers would like to see. Therefore, your real estate chatbot will improvise a personal experience for your customers and ensure they are hooked.

5. Better Time Management

Maybe you’ve just started your business and have plenty of time for your customers. But that will not stay the same. As your business grows, you will have more customers that will ask you many questions. Managing time will be challenging for you as it might already not be straightforward. If you want to spend your time on more critical issues, this is where a real estate chatbot can help you!
By using a chatbot, you and your sales team will deal with much narrower, filtered information, saving you time and effort. This way, you’re only concerned with closing the deal and not spending time prospecting or answering FAQs.

6. Automate the follow-up process

As we said earlier, realtors are too busy to spend time on the things that a robot can quickly do. Chatbots can be very easily utilized to follow up on your leads via the medium they choose. Your chatbot can ask the users if they want to be contacted via email or text message for more information or would directly prefer talking to the realtor.
A text message or an email will then be sent to the prospect automatically, or you can even take it in manually.

7. History of Interaction

Using a chatbot gives you access to all the information you have gathered from your users. Categorizing information this way is easier than doing it the old-fashioned way, don’t you agree? Chatbots help you by keeping records of all the conversations to date. Anytime you need to look up what the customer has said, you can just refer to the logs stored in the system.
This way, you can even identify trends between a customer and bot interactions.

8. Schedule Property Viewings

When its time arrives, the bot can schedule a home tour and take care of introducing the client and the real estate agent. The agents or sales team can take in from here.

9. 360 Degree Virtual Tours

Some people prefer seeing the property before seeing it in person. A real estate chatbot can do the job! It can give interested prospects a quick virtual tour. This gives them a fair idea of the property before even scheduling a site visit.

What are the top use cases of chatbots in real estate?

Here are the top 9 use cases of chatbots in real estate:

• Generate leads from digital users
• Build customer profiles
• Answer questions about properties
• Provide virtual property tours
• Schedule property viewings
• Follow up after property viewings
• Check for mortgage options
• Collect reviews
• Analyze market trends

Real estate chatbot examples

There are a ton of options for real estate chatbots these days. We have selected some of the bests here:

1. Freshdesk Messaging (formerly Freshchat)

According to the Freshdesk Messaging website, you can:
Deliver fast and consistent customer service across email, phone, chat, WhatsApp Business, and other social media channels from a single view.
Faster resolution at a lesser cost: Cut down on manual and repetitive tasks using advanced automation rules, and solve customer queries faster without increasing your agent strength.
Stay on top of your CSAT goals: Use customizable analytics and reports to track team performance, identify bottlenecks before they snowball, and keep tabs on your team’s CSAT goals.

2. Structurely

According to the website, Stucturley offers the following:

• Better than human: Your AI assistant delivers the same empathetic and respectful conversations as a human with more consistency and fewer headaches
• Works with any lead provider: Automatically import your leads from any online lead provider, and Aisa Holmes will engage them with a local area code phone
• Nurture unresponsive leads for the long term. Your AI Assistant does the dirty work, so you don’t have to nurture all your leads manually. Who has time for that anyway?
• Your AI Assistant empathizes with your leads and respectfully drives conversations forward. The AI understands not every lead is ready to make a decision today. She handles leads that are “just looking” and empathizes with leads that mention a new child, new job, divorce, or other life-changing events
• Manage your AI Assistant from your phone: iOS and Android apps let you take lead conversations on the go. Take over the conversation or mute the conversation from your phone
• Send lead conversations back to your CRM and copy your lead assignment rules: Lead conversations are sent back to your CRM, your lead assignment rules are copied so the right team members always get the right leads and mute/unmute conversations directly from your CRM
• Never forget a follow-up task: AI that will let you know when you’re needed so you can stay on top of your leads

3. RealtyChatbot

According to RealtyChatbot website, you will have access to the following features using RealtyChatbot:

• Automated lead response: Respond to new leads in seconds! Your automated Realty Chatbot is standing by 24/7 to chat with prospects and get leads. Even when you’re sleeping or working with other clients!
• Quick-reply buttons: Chatbot users LOVE our quick-reply buttons! Your chatbot will even record the answers to questions and email you the results. Be sure to check out our video to see them in action!
• Advanced conversation flows: RealtyChatbot advances each lead opportunity by modifying the conversation flow based on how your visitor responds. Free updates are always expanding your chatbot’s abilities.

There are other real estate chatbots that you can check out too:

• MobileMonkey
• Brivity
• ReadyChat
• Structurely
• WP-Chatbot
• Roof.ai
• Askavenue
• Chatra.io
• Flow XO
• Drift
• Olark

We hope you’ve enjoyed this article and it’s been helpful for you. Have you used any real estate chatbots before? Would you recommend any chatbot to our users? We would love to hear from you! Leave your thoughts for us in the comment below.

Automation has been a buzzword in all aspects of the business world during the past decades. It is one of the best ways to enhance business operations, marketing, sales, and accounting. The real estate industry, as one of the most booming in the world, is undoubtedly no exception. But what is automation in the real sense, why should you bring it into play, and how can you automate your work as a real estate broker?
Here in this post, we have provided you with a brief guide to getting started with real estate automation and learning about the amazing results it will bring to your business.

Why Is Automation a Necessity for Real Estate Brokers?

A survey conducted by McKinsey studying 800 executives reveals that 85% of companies worldwide have picked up the pace in the course of digital transformation. 67% of these companies have shifted their focus to artificial intelligence and automation. The real estate industry is not untouched by automation. Developers have already decided to invest abundantly in technology across various verticals and are noticing positive results.
Generally speaking, automation is the process of cutting down manual work and allowing your digital tools to do more for you to speed up your menial operations. This might be gained through automated notifications and task management for you and your team, email workflows, or helpful integrations between your real estate applications.
Real estate automation reduces your workload substantially and promotes your marketing and business operations from good to great. Of course, it never implies dismissing your employees to let machines do their job; it is rather about making operations extensively easier and more productive. You may use as much or as little automation as you need. At the outset, your goal must be simplifying what you are already doing. If your agency is currently equipped with a CRM or email marketing tool, you can set up some automation tools at once and sync them with the features you already have.

Advantages of Using Automation in Real Estate

The benefits of automating marketing processes in real estate are countless, as the industry is booming all over the globe. Automation tools and systems are the need of the hour for all brokers involved in the business. Furthermore, many realtors and investors find automation technology as a firm foundation for making a straightforward and transparent deal. Continue reading to learn further about the amazing results automation can bring to the real estate business.

1. Better Lead Generation through Website Forms

If you link your landing pages and website forms to your CRM system, you can create a fully-automated marketing machine that picks up fresh leads 24/7, even while you are asleep or off work. This process doesn’t need to be complicated; you could develop a callback request form or even a simple contact form.

2. Lead Synchronization from Diverse Channels

You probably capture leads from a multitude of sources. It could be challenging for you to keep track of them in different places. However, it surely doesn’t need to be. As a real estate broker, you can benefit from various examples of marketing automation tools to sync all your leads in one place. This integration will save you loads of time, money, and energy, and lead to higher productivity for lead nurturing and qualification.
As a handy example, Follow Up Boss is one of the most effective tools for real estate marketing automation with many helpful, user-friendly automation features. This lead management system is utilized and trusted by over 20k real estate brokers who use the software to automatically organize, distribute, and follow up with diverse leads from over 200 different sources. You can also connect your Follow Up Boss account to your iCloud or Google Contacts to sync your newly-generated leads on the software with your phone’s contact database. Therefore, when a lead calls you, you can notice their name on the Caller ID, and you always know exactly who you are conversing with.

3. Lead Routing Automation

It is so tough and time-consuming to manually route leads to the best brokers. However, you will save loads of time by using an efficient real estate marketing tool that automates lead routing and lead rotation. You can simply route leads geographically by zip code, refer your higher-priced leads to your more senior agents, or establish a “first-to-claim” or “round-robin” process. A round-robin process is an arrangement of selecting all elements (your leads) in a group equally in some logical order, typically from the top to the bottom of a list and, subsequently, beginning again at the top of the list and so on.

4. Developed Lead Nurture Workflows

It is crystal clear that gathering and storing leads in your CRM software is not adequate at all. You require to nurture leads to boost the propensity to close a deal by maintaining relationships with clients. These relationships are vital in today’s real estate transaction cycles, and by nurturing leads, you build and sustain that relationship over time while boosting brand loyalty and trust.
Lead nurturing includes sending timely and relevant emails to the right leads to direct them down your funnel. Drip emails or automated workflows provide real estate brokers with the best way to do this. They are easy to create and can be integrated into systems like Brivity or email marketing tools like Mailchimp. Once you are set up, you can sit back, relax, and be sure that your emails are constantly being sent to the right audience without you having to lift a finger.

5. Potential Opportunity Tracking

Your most crucial leads are considered your opportunities. They are leads who are familiar with your real estate agency and recognize your established brand plus high-priced customers you know in the market. Automation enables you to keep an extra close eye on such leads. In most CRM systems, you can utilize deal stages to track an opportunity’s journey all through the common stages of your pipeline, ranging from callback requested, contract sent, to closed-won.

6. Lead Activity Monitoring

A real estate broker should not spend much time watching their leads and speculating who is worth contacting each day. Automated activity monitoring helps you check and track your leads’ behavior on your website and social channels and use pre-defined triggers to notify you when an action is essentially needed.

7. More Effective Transaction & Task Management

As a real estate broker, you probably need to deal with long lists of tasks and checklists every day. That is a real struggle to stay on top of all of those while keeping the best track of time. With a real estate-customized CRM, it is a cakewalk for you to create automated tasks and checklists. These lists help you scrutinize and manage every detail related to a listing, open house, sale, and many more.

8. Easier Property Inspection

Property inspection can be a tough and tedious job. But luckily, technology can come to help real estate brokers. There are a variety of automation tools in the market, like Spectora, that can remarkably facilitate home inspection for agents. You can also automate inspection arrangements, reminders, and follow-ups for both agents and clients and notify everyone involved when a property inspection is rescheduled.

9. Accounting & Financial Automation

Accounting and financial procedures are mostly a big headache for many real estate agencies. An automated cloud-based system, for example, Xero, can do miracles for keeping your accounts and finances in check. Yet, ensure the tool is completely synced to your other key tools, including your CRM. You need to make sure your contacts are up-to-date everywhere.

10. Multimedia Engagement

Today, we live in a digital era flooded by various sorts of content other than textual messages. As a real estate broker, you can use a variety of multimedia apps to communicate and engage with your audience and clients. For instance, BombBomb is a valuable real estate video app that helps you engage with your previous clients, particularly if you manage to sync it with your Follow Up Boss or other tools like Dotloop to reach out on noteworthy key dates.
It is also helpful to automate your voicemail messages via tools like Agent Legend. Such user-friendly real estate apps enable you to personalize your messages and automatically send them to your leads in the easiest way. Instead of chasing every single lead yourself, you can use the app to take the pain out of real estate lead management. Agent Legend is a mixture of easy-to-use software designed by top realtors and mortgage professionals, with pre-built campaigns and hundreds of integrations that help brokers stand on the shoulders of high-performing agents and industry experts.

11. More Effectual Follow-Ups

Before seeking new leads, it is advisable to first look at the most qualified leads you already have: your previous clients. Automated email workflows help you reach out to your past clients at pre-set intervals, for instance, one year after property purchase, or on their house anniversary (Housiversary). Automation helps you make more effectual and accurate follow-ups for each specific lead you have already generated.

12. Accurate Performance Analysis

Like any other business associated with sales and marketing, a real estate agency’s success is highly dependent on teamwork performance. As a manager, you need a comprehensive tool that compiles and generates automated reports and informs you of everything going on via an organized dashboard. Automated analytics keeps you constantly posted on how every project is coming along and which of your brokers might need extra coaching.

Automation Can Benefit All Stakeholders in the Real Estate Industry

As we clarified, there are innumerable advantages of using automation tools in the real estate industry. In this post, we mentioned a few to help you figure out all the perks and privileges better. These tools enable real estate brokers to facilitate their business activities from scratch to the final transaction. Simply put, automation works wonders for both the realtors and investors to help them gain the highest results. Automation will principally increase brokers’ productivity while enhancing the communication between the agents and clients.
Furthermore, automation can help society take a more environmentally-friendly approach since no paperwork is involved in the whole process. Consequently, automation serves numerous perks for all the stakeholders in the real estate industry. If you are a realtor, do not hesitate to equip your agency with the most efficient automation tools to delight your customers, empower your employees, and grow your business.