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The client: a real estate brokerage coordinating property sales and client follow-ups
The client is a metropolitan real estate brokerage employing 25 agents and administrative personnel.
Its agents spend their time showing properties to potential clients, managing buyer consultations, and discussing matters with sellers, lenders, and contractors.
The agents communicate with clients between appointments, with buyers calling about available properties, sellers requesting updates, and lenders contacting agents regarding pending transactions.
The agents respond to client needs from their phones throughout the working day.
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4. You can also use iPlum to streamline your business’ communication
The challenge: client follow-ups mixed with personal calls and messages
Agents used their personal numbers for property inquiries and ongoing transactions. As the brokerage added listings and clients, they had more conversations to review between appointments.
However, their phones did not separate business correspondence from private conversations.
Thus, to find a pending client request, the agent had to search through private and client conversations. Besides, the management had limited visibility into which inquiries still needed attention.
The communication system created the following bottlenecks:
Pending client messages were difficult to track
Agents received property questions, showing requests, and transaction updates alongside personal texts. However, reading a message between appointments did not always mean an agent could respond immediately.
Later, agents had to return to those threads to determine which questions they hadn’t answered. In addition, new messages added to the work of reviewing earlier requests, contributing to delays in client follow-up.
Circulated personal numbers led to calls outside working hours
Agents’ numbers appeared on property listings, advertising flyers, and online directories. Prospects could save those details and call at any hour, including evenings and weekends.
While the brokerage wanted agents to remain accessible, using a personal line left them with no separate business-calling schedule. Silencing the phone also affected private calls, while leaving it active meant property inquiries interrupted personal time.
Business callers reached personal voicemail
Agents used the same voicemail for clients, lenders, contractors, and personal contacts. When they missed calls during showings, work-related messages mixed with private ones.
They then had to listen through the messages to identify business requests and decide whom to call back. The brokerage also lacked a consistent business greeting for callers who could not reach an agent.
Managers could not readily check the status of client inquiries
Because agents managed communication through personal accounts, managers could not independently review the relevant business activity.
When a client reported a delayed response, management had to ask the agent to check their phone and explain what had happened.
The solution: separate property inquiries and organize client follow-ups
The brokerage signed up for iPlum so agents could manage client calls, texts, and voicemail through business lines on their existing smartphones.
With iPlum, the management could:
Use a dedicated business line for property inquiries
Agents received second-line business numbers for listings, advertising materials, and client correspondence.
Calls and texts sent to those numbers arrived through iPlum, allowing gents to review property inquiries separately from conversations with family and friends.
And, during follow-up, they could return calls and send messages from the same business number clients had saved.
Identify conversations that still needed a reply
Within the business inbox, agents could use pinned and unread conversations to organize pending correspondence.
Pinning placed a priority discussion at the top of the message list. Marking a conversation as unread served as a reminder to revisit a question a client raised but the agent could not answer immediately.
Agents could use those markers when reviewing client messages between appointments, then check the conversation before sending their response.
Acknowledge inquiries received during appointments
The brokerage configured automatic text replies for missed calls and incoming messages during selected periods.
When an agent was unavailable, the preset reply acknowledged the inquiry and explained when the client could expect a response.
While the agent still needed to answer the property question or return the call, the automated message provided the client with an acknowledgment during the wait.
Set availability separately from personal calls
Agents used Do Not Disturb schedules to silence business calls and message alerts outside their working hours.
The setting applied to their iPlum lines, so agents could receive personal calls through their regular numbers. Business texts and voicemail remained available for review upon their return to work.
Agents could also adjust their availability around appointments rather than silence their entire phone.
Assign missed business calls a brokerage greeting
Agents set up custom voicemail greetings identifying themselves and the brokerage.
Callers could leave their name, contact number, and reason for calling in the agent’s business voicemail. Agents then reviewed those requests separately from personal messages.
The brokerage could agree on the information its greetings should communicate while allowing agents to record their own introductions.
Give management access to business account activity
Through multi-user account management, administrators assigned agent numbers, managed permissions, and administered billing.
Authorized managers could consult available business records when investigating a delayed response. They could then discuss the inquiry with the responsible agent and confirm who would follow up.
The records provided information about business communication; agents and managers remained responsible for checking whether the client’s request had been resolved.
The results: a 60% reduction in client response delays
Within the first month of using iPlum, the brokerage reported improvements in client follow-up and the separation of business and personal communication as follows:
- Client response delays decreased by 60%.
- Phone administration time decreased by 35%, with management administering agent numbers and billing through the brokerage’s account.
- Agents used dedicated business numbers for client calls and texts, reserving their personal numbers for private conversations.
- After-hours business calls no longer interrupted personal time when agents enabled their Do Not Disturb settings.
- Managers gained access to business communication records when investigating delayed replies.
You can also use iPlum to streamline your business’ communication
If your team spends time searching personal messages for client inquiries, assign those conversations to a dedicated business number.
With iPlum, your agents can review property questions, mark conversations for a later reply, and acknowledge missed calls while attending showings. They can also set business availability separately from their personal phones.
In addition, your brokerage can administer agent lines and review business activity when a client reports a delayed response.
Make client follow-up part of the working day, even when that day takes your agents from one property to another.
