Real estate has always been a very competitive business, but low interest rates over the last decade have resulted in an extraordinary amount of buying and selling in the housing market. Property values have increased in many urban areas. With low interest rates, there are more first-time buyers in the market. The ways in which home buyers look for properties are also changing. More and more customers are communicating through e-mail instead of by phone. With MLS available online, more and more home buyers are contacting selling agents directly for more information, increasing chances of doing double-ended sales, but also increasing the amount of missed calls and missed opportunities. Pagers, e-mail, cell phones, fax costs and more, all make a difference to the bottom line. Agents are having trouble responding to every single client call, e-mail, fax or page. Real estate firms need flexible communications systems that reduce costs for brokers, but also enable agents to respond to home buyers quickly and to provide them with information whenever, and wherever. With a competitive real estate market, brokers need to attract the top agents in order to build a successful business.

Real estate professionals face a number of communications challenges

Increasing communications costs. Phone and fax equipment, multiple phone lines and more are all driving costs for brokers. Pagers, e-mail, cell phones, faxes and more are all driving up costs for agents. Traditional phone systems cannot easily accommodate employees working from home or on the road, and opening new offices often means buying an entirely new phone system.

Increasing customer service expectations. Being successful in the real estate business is all about the relationship with the customer. By themselves, older telephone systems simply cannot address the needs of today’s real estate professionals: low-cost long distance charges, never missing a call, and being able to access all messages in a single place, whether voice, fax or e-mail. With home buyers using a number of communications tools, it’s easy to lose track of important messages. E-mails, voice mails, faxes, and pages are difficult to stay on top of. Effective customer service requires bringing those different sources together so that you can make the sale.

Web-based property listings are reducing customer touch. Good rapport with a client is crucial to closing deals. A steady flow of referrals stems from the word-of-mouth advertising provided by satisfied customers. More and more, potential home buyers are looking to Web sites and online listings to do their house shopping rather than contacting agents directly.

Missed calls are missed opportunities. There are times when real estate agents simply cannot respond to home buyers. A young couple might be out house-hunting on the weekend, but when they phone the office to ask about the property, no one is there to take their call. This may result in a lost sales opportunity, but it doesn’t have to.