Selecting a CRM for real estate professionals that grows your business and gives great customer service is key for future success.

If you are a new or veteran agent, you know that using a CRM to help grow your business is essentially a requirement in the industry.

There are a ton of real estate CRMs to choose from, and most only focus on business generation. Business generation features are key, but when you finally have several listings and contracts in place, most of these CRMs fall short of helping you actually run your business.

This is why choosing a CRM that has both business generation and transaction management is vital to your long term success. You’ve worked too hard to gain clients only to lose them with poor customer service.

Here are the 4 must-have features when selecting a CRM for real estate professionals that will ensure long term success:

What’s In Your Real Estate CRM? 4 Essential Features for Long-Term Success 

• Prospecting Past Clients and Center-Of-Influence. Your past client and center-of-influence lists are a goldmine. If you are not “working your sphere” consistently, you are giving up huge amounts of business. The CRM you choose must have tools to allow you to easily stay in touch with your PC/COI in an organized, personalized, and efficient manner. A few features you should look for:

∙ Auto Prospecting Lists create prospecting lists based on the last time you’ve contacted that contact and the significance of the relationship. For example, you should contact your best clients quarterly (if not monthly). Your CRM should know which contacts you want to reach out to more frequently than others and create a list based on this and the last time you contacted them.

∙ Important Touch Dates remind you of important dates for your contacts. Never miss a milestone in your contacts’ lives with touch date reminders for important events like home purchase anniversaries, birthdays, and wedding anniversaries.

∙ Contact Notes Log provide a call history log for each contact so you know when and what you talked about.

• Transaction Management. Gaining a client is one thing, but keeping that client is what sets you up for long term success. The best way to keep a client is to offer an exceptional customer experience during the transaction. To do that, you must be on top of the transaction every step of the way. Transaction management features should include:

∙ Task/Action Plans apply action plans for every transaction so that you (and your team) will know what has been completed and what has not. Bonus feature: action plans should have the ability to associate with letter/email merge templates so you can maintain consistent professional communication.

∙ Transaction Dates input and track transaction dates. Missing a transaction date could be detrimental to your business and client relationship. Transaction dates in your CRM should also sync with your calendar of choice.

∙ Transaction Files upload all files relevant to the transaction. Keeping everything in one place allows you and your team to stay organized. This way you know what has been received and what documents you still need.  Additionally, it makes it incredibly easy to forward documents to anyone who needs them.

• Transaction Client Portal. Keeping your clients in-the-know during the transaction is often the difference between a good client experience and a great one. Your clients will greatly appreciate a single place for them to see everything that is happening in the transaction. This will also differentiate you from your competition.

∙ Transaction Information provide client access to transaction documents so they can download them at will (e.g. contract, listing agreement, disclosures, addendum, etc). 

∙ Listing Activity provide a log of all listing activity from showings, to advertisements, social posts, sign calls and more. You never want your client to say, “I have no idea what my agent is doing to get my home sold.” Bonus feature: does your CRM integrate with your showing service, like ShowingTime where showings and feedback automatically appear under each listing?

• Goal Tracking. “A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.” Your CRM should allow you to set your (and your team’s) goals so you know where you are at all times.

∙ Income/Prospecting Goals ability to set your goals for income and number of transactions.  In addition, your CRM should allow you to compute daily/weekly prospecting goals based on your income goals.

∙ Track Transaction Source where did your business come from last year / last quarter? Knowing where each transaction was generated will help you understand what you are doing right and where you can improve.

∙ Statistics & Analytics your CRM should provide statistics and analytics that help you understand if you are on track to meet your goals, where you can improve, and what changes you might need to make.

Not all T/CRMs are created equal.

If your CRM has these 4 features, you can rest assured that you are set up for long term success. Many CRMs have some of these features, but finding one with all four will lay a strong foundation for your real estate business moving forward.

At AFrameSoftware, we understand what makes the best agents successful. After all, our platform was created by agents constantly closing over 100+ transactions per year. We know the difference between what works and those gimmicky features that ultimately do not grow your business.

Our T/CRM combines industry best practices into one platform providing unmatched transaction management with a powerful CRM so that you grow your business, stay organized, and impress clients with an application that was designed specifically to meet the needs of real estate professionals.

Schedule a demo to learn more about AFrameSoftware or email us at info@AFrameSoftware.com.

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