Mobile Messaging and the Future of Real Estate
dotloop
August 30, 2018 | comments
How texting will change the way agents transact real estate
From the way we process paperwork to how we communicate with clients, digital technology has transformed the real estate landscape. In fact, according to Zillow Group’s Consumer Housing Trends Report 2017, 79% of home buyers now shop online.
Yet while apps, calendars, emails and phone calls are all prominent features of smartphones, there’s an opportunity for the real estate industry to increasingly leverage a more obvious mobile staple: text messaging. According to Pew Research, texting is the most widely-used feature on mobile phones across all age groups from 18-50+. Texting won’t replace existing real estate technology, but it is changing how agents are communicating with their clients and sharing information.
Below are 3 top reasons why every agent should consider incorporating more text messaging into their daily transaction management work.
1. Improves Client Response Times
Timeliness factors into so many parts of the real estate transaction. From the lead through the closing of a deal, text messaging provides a quick and easy way to share specifics on property listings, send documents for eSignatures and alert clients when they close on a house.
The numbers don’t lie; when an agent needs a client to respond quickly, text is indisputably the best communication channel:
Text has a 98% open rate compared to an average of 15-20% for email (Mobile Marketing Watch).
Most texts are read within 5 seconds of being delivered (SlickText).
The average person takes 90 seconds to respond to a text versus 90 minutes to respond to an email (CTIA).
2. Easy to Use
According to a 2017 report by Hitwise, nearly 60% of all Google searches were done from a mobile device. Dotloop has responded in kind by recently unveiling an industry first with its new text Messenger feature. Messenger enables agents and clients to text, review docs and eSign seamlessly from their smartphones. Clients no longer need to download software to interact with the documents, and agents receive real-time read receipts so they know exactly when a document has been signed or shared. No more guessing when a document has been signed or when a client has read your message.
3. Accountability and Accuracy
Real estate agents, admins and brokers know it’s their responsibility to maintain adequate records so they can remain compliant. By moving more conversations from phone calls and emails to texting from within dotloop’s platform, real estate professionals are finding it easier to more accurately track conversations. With dotloop’s Messenger feature, for instance, agents can automatically export all their text conversations in case of an unexpected audit.
When an agent texts a client’s smartphone from within the dotloop platform, an activity log gives the agent instant visibility into what changes were made to the documents, thus making it easy to track the transaction progress.
Dotloop’s mobile text Messenger simplifies the real estate transaction management process, while making document collaboration and sharing more seamless and efficient. For more information and to activate dotloop’s text Messenger feature, click here.
