How Chatbots Can Help Boost Lead Generation at Your Estate Agency

Published: 15/04/2021 By Mark Tew - Senior Website Consultant

In the world of digital transformation and marketing, chatbots have quickly risen in status from quirky gadgets to the new must-have automation tool. The technology behind them is helping businesses of all sizes engage effectively with their customers, and estate agencies should be taking note! 

If you’re new to the world of AI and chatbots, a bot is basically a computer program that simulates human conversation through voice commands, text chats or even both. For example, voice chat bots are now commonly used by businesses with large customer service operations – banks being a prime example – that are automated programs built to interact with customers like a human would, and cost very little to engage with.

The job of a chatbot is to engage with your customers and quickly deal with day-to-day enquiries – better yet, they can work 24-hours a day, 365-days a year and are not limited by time or a physical location. For estate agents, this functionality should certainly be piquing their attention as an effective chatbot can essentially deal with their business’s customer service right around the clock; meaning vital human resources can be freed to focus on more business-critical activities.


How an effective chatbot can help estate agents’ lead generation activities

Of course, a good chatbot can do far more than simply deal with day-to-day customer service enquiries; they can also help support effective lead generation tactics – and here’s why…

• Chatbots can help with accurate data capture

We’ve all had one of those days; the phones are constantly ringing, you’re dealing with enquiry after enquiry, and you’ve only got so many notepads to hand! Missing out or incorrectly capturing vital customer details can write off the quality of a lead – and this is where Chatbots can prevent this from happening.

Text chatbots are a genuinely effective and accurate data capture tool; encouraging the user to provide the details you need to help serve them better. For new sales generation, a chatbot can accurately capture the vital information you need to help deliver a bespoke, personal service – and all automatically, too!

• Chatbots can help build brand engagement and awareness

Effective PropTech and software such as chatbots can help your estate agency stand out from your rivals because, as we all know, customers are fickle and will often go with the agency that makes things as easy as possible for them. Chatbots can provide a qualitative solution that requires minimum customer effort or input any time of the day or night; plus, chatbots are less prone to human errors, meaning a better overall customer experience that can help support better brand engagement for your estate agency.

• Chatbots have relatively low development costs
  
  

Chatbots have been at the cutting edge of accessible artificial intelligence for some time now that means for even small businesses and start-ups, they can be a cost-effective asset. Much of a chatbot’s functionality requires less development costs in comparison to a bespoke application development; in fact, most of the back-end functionality is simple to use for even tech novices!

Take our Chatbot, Shortcut – which is based on the Landbot platform. This system has simple template-based functionality and pre-programmed functionality in-built – meaning that the job of creating automated question-based responses is truly simple! Plus, it’s interoperable with virtually all the big estate agent software solutions; meaning that enquiries are captured effectively with very little additional development requirements.

• Chatbots can initiate better user interactions
  
  

Did you know that 59% of consumers don’t like to use the phone when first engaging with a business? The virtual and social worlds are now the preferred first touchpoint of choice for the public, and this is especially true of the Millennial generation! So, using a chatbot can help encourage first contact from phone-shy consumers by initiating and maintaining those initial enquiries and conversation.

Going beyond initial front desk enquiries, many chatbots can ‘learn’ how to best respond to queries based on ongoing user-based input. This means that the more a bot is utilised, the more it learns and can tailor its responses – enhancing both the user experience, building trust and creating more accurate lead data for you to use in your customer nurturing activities.

• They can streamline and speed up your agency’s back office processes
  
  

Finally, chatbots are magnificently efficient and can effortlessly multi-task. For example, human agents are only capable of handling limited conversations at any one time, whereas chatbots can handle multiple conversations all at the same time. And, as we mentioned earlier, the information is generally captured more effectively too, thanks to it coming directly from the user.

Employing a chatbot at a busy estate agency to complement your human workforce is a fantastic way to boosting efficiency, reduce effort and reduce costs – meaning through one effortless solution, an agency can become more responsive, cost effective and engaging all in one fell swoop. Now that’s not bad now, is it?