Be careful what you wish for

[Rich@vtws]

I'm curious as to how those of you with very productive sites handle the volume of leads in an effective manner so that I may make some suggestions for some clients of ours. It seems as the lead volume increases, some begin to service them very ineffectively. I've been receiving numerous copies of the leads that look similar to the following: (the info is changed for the privacy of the client)

You have received a property request form.
MLS #: 03-1243
Property Desc: River View
Name: george bax***neos
Address: 218 stra****rger road
City: perkasie
State: pa
Zip: 18944
Country: USA
Email: gbax@*****.net
Phone: 267****376

Comments: Is a boat slip included with the property or do you have to pay yearly?? This is the third email that I have sent. It would be nice to get a response.


I know it is out of my hands but we work very hard to make the sites productive and it just kills me to see things falling through the cracks like this.

Does anyone have any realistic suggestions I may be able to make to help them make better use of their leads without pointing out that they are screwing up big time

[kkraft]

Sounds like this guy wants a place to park his boat. He's a buyer!

I am amazed at agents who do not follow up on leads, especially ones that actually ask a question. These are consumers who are wanting help to BUY something! They are sending BUY signals, so help them!

I think part of the problem with internet leads is the fact that there are SOOO many of them. The advent of IDX and having the consumer demanding information all the time with no commitment back, makes us agents a little callous and seemingly inattentive. After about 50 people walking all over you, sucking up information with not even taking the time to graciously say, "thanks". You begin to pick and choose who you respond too. This is not good...

Realizing that the buying cycle is a long one, and we on this side of the website have no idea where the consumer is (in the buying cycle), it's important to develop a standard of practice to respond to each and every email.

Think of email from a consumer as having a "walk in" come to your office. You would think of letting them sit in your office for a day or two before you spoke to them!!

Consistency and speed is the key. Respond as quickly as possible and try to ask a question they must respond too. By that I mean don't be "sales pitchy". Give them the info they need.

I think consumers respect agents who treat them this way. It's been my experience that I must give out a lot of information, sometimes without hearing back. But then it's just another "time a bat". The more times at bat the greater the opportunity to hit a "home run".

You get want you give.

[IGotRealEstate]

Consistency and speed is the key. Respond as quickly as possible and try to ask a question they must respond too. By that I mean don't be "sales pitchy". Give them the info they need.
You get want you give.

I would have to agree Consistency and speed is the key... but I would have to added that buyers don't care if they use you for information and finding out that there working with another agent is the real key...

[kkraft]

Oh you are so right. It's important to find ask "how long have you been looking for a home?" If it's been awhile, ask why they haven't found one? From there is will give you a clue if they are already working with an agent.

I think many people are shopping for homes first, then along the way they are "interviewing" agents. When they find one that helps them they might sign up.

[chachi]

Rich, it sounds like in that particular situation that either your client (agent) is either too busy to respond to the lead or is not interested for one reason or another. If it is the former, they need a better lead followup process and/or more people to help. If it is the latter, maybe the answer is to focus the site and the lead generation process on their target market. I think that post a while back where the guy "went off" on real estate websites gave some insight here. Most agents' websites just throw up the standard MLS feed, bio and other boiler plate stuff. If you are a listing agent/broker, shouldn't the site be tailored to people looking to sell their homes/income property? Sure, there should be areas for people looking to buy your listings, but your main goal is to put property sellers into a funnel and get them to contact you. If you are a buyer's agent, the same holds true. The site should be geared towards getting as many buyers in the funnel to contact you (your client).

Tailoring the site for its primary function (someone has thought about this beforehand haven't they?) will probably keep leads like this from falling through the cracks.

[MrJodyHudson]

We try to answer every possible question on our site, so that the reader (hopefully a buyer or seller) can get all questions asked before they contact us. We still get a lot of folks who don't read and ask us questions that are answered on the site.

We try to get back to them fast. Yesterday, for instance, my partner who usually does the MLS search, response, qualify letter back... was busy and taking some personal time.

I wrote a friendly response:

Hi, This is Jody of www.Kate-Jody.com. We got your request and Kate is the one who usually answers these. She is tied up today and a lot of tomorrow (just covering my bases here).

She will be getting back with you and she will have a lot of questions for you that will help her better find the property that is most perfect for you!

We are not ignoring you, you ARE important to us. We are swamped and we will do our very best to help you as you wish to be helped.

Please feel free to use our connection to the FULL MLS from our home page and search for properties. Kate will be asking you about your financing preapprovals, your estimated time of purchase, price range, what things are important to you and many other things.

I appologize for this form-like letter, as we are swamped with responses today. Our market is HOT, this is July 4th weekend - which has already started for us... and Kate WILL get back to you just as soon as she can!

I look forward to giving you our best possible service, all the way to the settlement table!

Take care,

Jody Hudson of www.Kate-Jody.com
=============

I sent a copy to Kate, my partner, of each of these and she has now, finally, gotten back to all of them.

We do write a few "canned" responses to things and put shortcuts to saved docs on our desktop with a proper label. That way we can just click over, copy and paste, and modify to suit. That helps us a lot.

My job is to get people to our sites. Kate then takes them up to an appointment with her or us and then we get them to settlement. I answer the unique questions or quiries on unique properties and she handles the normal residential home and condo ones.

One way or another, we get back to everyone within a few hours, even if, like yesterday, it is to say that we can't get back to them for a while...

We do NOT try for quantity of calls or emails, we are always trying to, instead, improve the QUALITY which then of course decreases the quantity.

[ResaleBroker]

Follow-up and cherry-picking are problems that have been around long before the Internet.

I've found that many of our top producers are less inclined to work these outside leads. Especially if they are nothing more than a name, phone number and preferrences. On the other hand, many of our new agents would be happy to have just one of them. The reasons in both cases are probably obvious.

I'm not keen on fighting human nature so in our main office we now have an assistant who handles all incoming emails. This assistant sorts and distributes the incoming leads accordingly. Essentially we cherry pick the leads ourselves. This way the leads are given to an agent who has an interest in making the call. By the way, we track these leads and follow up with the agents for status reports.

[2savvy]

You should tell them the 2savvy story and what I've learned about following up on Internet leads remember the old I am getting Internet Leads now what ? thread at agentsonline ..lol


I lost out on some serious money.. or at least the opportunity

Follow up on Internet leads as soon as they hit your in box.



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[driver]

You need to let your website do the "cherry picking" for you.

While a short contact form will get you a flood of leads, a longer form will pre screen for you.

Unless you have the manpower to follow up on every lead that comes in quickly, I'd suggest a longer form with questions that screen your leads for you. If you still can't keep up, make the form longer until you can keep up.

I'd even change this to fit the busy and slow seasons, if you have them. When it's busy, enable a long form. When it's slow, keep it short.

[webmaster]

Great suggestion DRIVER! Another way to do this, with your existing form is to mandate more of the questions "must" be filled in order to submit. Many people only have a few required fields and the rest options, toggling between required and optional on your form may help as well.