In a competitive industry where every interaction with a prospective or existing customer matters, working out of email doesn’t cut it anymore. This is why in 2020, 65% of businesses used CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, an increase from 59% in 2018. The trend is only going in one direction – upwards.
In today’s digital world, communication is about five things:
- Speed – prompt responses, so the client doesn’t have to wait
- Specificity – your communications give the client exactly what they need
- Timeliness – your messages arrive at just the right time to have the most impact
- Completeness – you don’t miss out anything important
- Accuracy – your messages are appropriate to the client you are addressing
CRM can help your team reach these communication goals and close more deals.
What Exactly is CRM?
Put simply, CRM software allows you to keep all your contacts and communications in one place and track your interaction with them. Other common features in a CRM platform include.
- The ability to segment your database into targeted groups.
- Advanced platforms have sales and marketing automation tools built into them so that you can send a series of emails and automatically be assigned tasks.
- Call recording and call transcription.
- Scheduling appointments and other meetings.
One of the primary decisions that a Commercial Real Estate broker needs to consider is whether to use an industry specific CRM or a mass market CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot.
The major benefit of industry specific options are that they are virtually always has CRE specific features like comps, historicals, and maps. On the other hand, major CRMs typically have more features in general and more integrations to other marketing, sales, and back office applications that your team is using. Their other features are typically more advanced as well.
Long story short is that you can integrate CRE industry specific needs natively, through tools like Zapier or Piesync, or by developing a custom integration into one of the big three CRM options – Salesforce, HubSpot, or Dynamics – and get a more robust tool. It’s why most major CRE companies are working with these players. You have your cake and get to eat it too.
Why is HubSpot a Good Fit for CRE?
HubSpot is the #1 CRM for scaling companies for a reason. It has all of the benefits that we just described of some other CRMs and here are some key differentiators.
- 24/7 access to phone, chat, and email support comes with your Pro subscription. You can pay 30% more for the privilege with Salesforce.
- It’s free for the basic CRM package – so you can try it out at no cost.
- It tracks leads from initial contact to customer, optimizing every step. Lifecycle reporting is the key to understanding whether your sales and marketing activities are generating revenue or not.
- It includes sales automation where other needs require other, paid tools.
- There is a robust ecosystem of over 500 applications that integrate directly with HubSpot
- Adoption rates are high. The best CRM is the one that your team uses and HubSpot’s intuitive user experience and simple to use but with powerful capabilities get your brokers onboard even when past experiments with CRM have failed.
- HubSpot’s CRM is part of a suite of tools for sales, marketing and service. You can align your entire team towards more revenue with these tools all under one roof.
Once you’ve incorporated the HubSpot CRM into your workflow, you won’t look back.
The Importance of Customer Retention
If you’re concerned about customer retention, it’s one of the chief reasons people invest in CRM. According to Tinyclues, 82% of survey respondents cited customer retention as one of the top reasons for adopting CRM software.
It’s easy to see why. We’ve all been customers of businesses with poor customer service. Here are some of the common mistakes that businesses make when communicating with customers:
- Impossible to find contact information
- Unreturned phone calls and missed appointments
- Inappropriate email campaigns
- Wrongly personalized communications
- Helplines with excessive waiting times
- Chatbots that don’t give you what you want
- FAQs that don’t address your concerns
How many of us haven’t encountered the above problems as consumers? Or maybe your firm isn’t employing any of these tactics let alone well? Great, there’s more opportunity!
Given the number of communications that are vital during the sales process in commercial real estate, can you really afford to neglect your CRM? Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of shifting to a digital platform to manage your customer communications and sales leads:
Pros
- Keeps all your data in one place
- Automated email and text campaigns
- Prompts and reminders so you don’t miss a thing
- Accurate and timely communication
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Improved lead conversion rates
- Handy mobile features – great for agents on the go
Cons
- Challenge of porting over data
- Learning curve for new system
We won’t sugarcoat it. Getting data from your legacy CRM or a zillion different spreadsheets is hard work. You shouldn’t go it alone. Depending upon your current system, there might be a native solution in HubSpot, a software company that can make it happen, or through blood, sweat, and tears. We can help you navigate the decision-making process with CRM and whether the juice is worth the squeeze.
Schedule an intro call with No Bounds Digital today and let us help you generate more and better leads and sales as your revenue operations partner.
