Your real estate brokerage operates in a market that’s constantly changing. Real estate market conditions, mortgage rates and local economic conditions are all conspiring to challenge your brokerage and your agents. Technology is also constantly changing. All this change can make it tough for brokerages to know when their current brokerage platform has reached the end of its usefulness, and it’s time to consider a new real estate brokerage platform. Based on our own experience working with brokerages, we can share some of those pain points with you. If several of these points feel familiar, it may be time to start evaluating a new real estate brokerage platform.
Do You Need A New Real Estate Brokerage Platform?
1. Frustrations
You want to change a red website button to blue, and your vendor has been sitting on this for six months, with no clear explanation why it is taking so long. This minor change has grown into a major frustration because it happens monthly or even more often. Or your vendor’s support team is not available when you need an answer. Or their support team is offshore and communication can be challenging, when all you want is a simple question answered because you’re in the middle of getting out an email blast, or writing a blog post. Multiply this by the number of agents of yours with similar experiences, and you have a “death by a thousand cuts” situation, none of which, on their own, are fatal, but in total the frustration level is too much to handle. Consider checking out the support options of your current, or prospective, vendor to ensure they can support your agents and staff in a manner that meets their needs so user adoption is high.
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2. Limitations
You’ve built your website several years ago. Back then, mobile browsing was not a dominant behavior among consumers, and your website was not built responsively, meaning the layout changes based on the screen size of the device being used. Now mobile users are having a hard time using your site on their smartphones. Or your site uses flash technology, which is no longer supported by major browsers, and pages don’t load properly. As a result, the user experience is bad, and these prospective customers are on to the next broker website with a better user experience. Your website is costing you business, and you want to fix that.
Or your CRM does not show your buyer lead activity (properties viewed, rated, noted, etc.) or provide adequate real estate lead routing capabilities for your brokerage to operate smoothly. Discussions with your vendor about these or other functional limitations leave you defeated, because your vendor cannot technically support the way you want your system to work. It may be time to evaluate other broker platform vendors.
3. Recruiting
Your technology offering can be a key part of your recruiting success. When recruiting agents, one tool in the brokerage’s recruiting tool belt is the technology you offer them to help them be more successful. Does your current platform vendor offer some or all of these tools?
- Agent websites
- Buyer and seller leads
- CRM to help track buyers and sellers
- Email marketing support
- Email/calendaring productivity tools (like G Suite)
- Agent-Branded New Listing Alerts
- Agent-Branded Market Reports
- Integration with third party tools the agent regularly uses prior to joining your brokerage
Depending on your platform choice, you can compile a technology offering that will have agents giddy over the tools your brokerage provides them to help reach their potential. If your vendor doesn’t consider recruiting in helping your planning, it might be time to consider new real estate brokerage platform.
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4. Retention – Training/Support
You’ve worked hard to recruit top agents to your brokerage, and now you want to ensure they stay. Training and support are often highly valued by agents when asked about their needs from their broker. Especially when it comes to the technology provided to help them succeed. Here’s a sample from Realtor Magazine about understanding your agents’ challenges. Your platform vendor can play a big part of that retention effort.
A brokerage platform is no small investment by a broker/owner, and a major key to its success is the training your agents receive not only when the system is launched, but in the months and years that follow. These platforms offer many features that may be covered initially, but are forgotten until an agent needs them. And by then some vendors offer no training, or training at an additional cost, or training/support that’s not offered in a convenient fashion (email only, long response times). Does that sound familiar? If so, your current solution may need an upgrade.
Ideally, your vendor will provide support over extended hours, because real estate is not a 9-5 job. For example, here at TRIBUS, our Chicago-based Concierge support team is available 11 hours a day. Also, with multiple generations of agents in the marketplace, multiple channels of support exist that best fit your agents: online chat, phone, email, and support websites. Make it easy for them to get the help they need and your agents will adopt your technology and remain happier at your brokerage.
Real Estate Brokerage Platform Selection Help Is Available
It’s a major undertaking to evaluate a new real estate brokerage platform vendor. To help, we’ve created a free Checklist for Working with a Broker Platform Vendor. Regardless whether you use TRIBUS or another vendor, this resource will help you navigate through your choices.
