Dialogue for Estate Agents - winning the response

 
Since we launched Dialogue to estate agents at the beginning of last summer we have learned a lot - and a big part of that learning was 'how to generate the response from clients'. 

As most readers of this blog will know, up until last year the overwhelming majority of our clients came from the hospitality industry, and it's a different ball-game - where the focus is on improving reputations across sites like TripAdvisor - as well as driving business from their websites.

For estate agents the emphasis is much more on the front end: getting more initial enquiries through your site and then reinforcing the sale - aiding conversion. But with much less raw material - far fewer clients than hotels have guests.

So what have we learned?

That the agent/client relationship is far closer than the hotel/guest relationship (in the majority of cases). This provides the key: if Dialogue is embedded in the whole sales process it is possible to approach a 100% response rate (our best hotel client achieves 12% - brilliant for a hotel, and far and away better than conventional CRM at +- 0.5%).

How was the response achieved? By following our guidelines to the letter: 

1. showing reviews (Dialogue) and Dynamic Display prominently on the homepage
2. telling clients during the sales/letting process that they will be invited to review
3. inviting the review before completion or immediately after
4. sending a personalised invitation to review from the person the client knows
5. following that invitation with a phone call

At first glance this may seem a bit long-winded, but when we examined the process further with clients we realised it wasn't: embedding the concept of reviews into the sale made that sale more likely (potential clients felt reassured by it) and, because there simply are not that many deals per negotiator per month, the workload was light. In addition, feedback suggests that clients actively welcome the invitation to review.

By following the five simple steps outlined above you will get...

• Great reviews - in volume
• Enhanced client loyalty
• Early warning of any client dissatisfaction (in private)

And much more besides: a constant stream of client feedback, great material for your marketing and PR, enhanced staff morale (many clients mentioned this specifically). For more client opinions like this one see our own homepage.