What’s the Best CRM for Real Estate?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and when you think about it, there are lots of ways to manage customer relationships depending on where they are in the sales process.

You start with a lead or a prospect. So you need a way to turn that person into a client. Then once you have that person committed to working with you, you need a way to manage the sale of their current home or you need a way to manage the purchase of their next home. And then once the sale is finalized, you need a way to stay in touch with that person.

The Three Stages of Customer Relationship Management in Real Estate

1. Lead/Prospect
2. Client (Seller/Buyer)
3. Past Client

So how do you manage these people? With the perfect CRM. However, as you probably know, or are learning, there’s no such thing.

The system you use to capture leads and nurture them into clients is likely not the best system to use during the listing and selling phase (otherwise knows as contract to close). And the system you use during the listing and selling phase is likely not the best system to use in the past client follow up phase.

It’s a convoluted and confusing mess if you haven’t designated which system does what. Let me just illustrate to you the life cycle of someone who uses our team to buy or sell real estate.

The Life Cycle of the Internet Lead

A buyer hits our eEdge website (Keller Williams) and registers with name, phone number, and email address. After 2-24 months of receiving drip emails, phone calls, and new listings, this buyer chooses to work with our team to start looking at homes and buy something.

After the in-office buyer consultation, where the buyer fills out a buyer information sheet, the buyer’s information is entered into Top Producer. The buyer’s agent puts the buyer under contract and all the contract to close process is handled within Top Producer. We also keep an Excel spreadsheet of all current clients to use as an at-a-glance management system.

After the buyer closes, he is assigned a series of yearly anniversary letters and quarterly phone calls from the buyer’s agent in Top Producer. In addition, the contact type “mailing list” is added to his record and once a month I export everyone with that contact type into an excel spreadsheet which is sent to our local printer for a postcard mailing. Additionally, he is entered into our Happy Grasshopper database where he will receive a fun email every three weeks.

The Life Cycle of the Expired Listing Lead

My lead agent Ron Henderson receives from Vulcan 7 a list of the people whose homes expired the previous day. Ron cherry picks the ones he likes and thinks are most likely to sell. Then he emails me a pdf for each individual prospect for me to enter into Top Producer. The plan I assign to the prospect includes a letter and brochure mailing as well as weekly follow up phone calls for Ron. The prospect is also added to the mailing where he will receive the monthly postcard.

Once the prospect agrees to list, the listing and the contract to close process is managed in Top Producer. We also keep an Excel spreadsheet of all current clients to use as an at-a-glance management system.

After the seller closes, he is assigned a series of yearly anniversary letters and quarterly phone calls from Ron in Top Producer. Additionally, he is entered into Happy Grasshopper for the fun email every three weeks.

How Many Systems Do You Need?

We use the following systems to run our real estate business:

• Top Producer
• eEdge
• a custom website
• Vulcan 7
• Happy Grasshopper
• Excel

I know some of you are using more. The point is, there is no ONE system that does everything exactly as you want it to. EVERY system has one thing it does really well. For the stuff that it doesn’t do as well, we find a workaround by using another system. That’s just the way it is! When our buyer’s agent Scott first started with us, he couldn’t understand why were keeping a database of people in eEdge and another in Top Producer. (The answer is because eEdge is a great lead capture and nurturing tool, but it’s a terrible transaction manager.)

Before I started working for Ron, he was using WiseAgent. I hated it. I couldn’t write and print letters out of it. More importantly, I couldn’t enter the contract to close process. So I made him get Top Producer. I had used it with my previous team, and I knew I could get his systems going by using it. I trained Ron how to use it and away we went. I’ve done a trial with a couple of other programs, but to be honest, I have everything I need set up in Top Producer. Some of the top teams manage 300+ transactions a year with it. Starting over with something new would be a nightmare for me.

CRM Survey Results

I took a survey of the subscribers to my blog. Below are the entire results that I received. I gathered 42 responses.

• 18 use Top Producer
• 8 use eEdge alone (eEdge is the Keller Williams branded version of Market Leader)

The rest use:

• BoomTown
• CINC (Commissions Inc)
• Contactually
• Followup Boss
• Infusionsoft
• Ixact Contact
• MyRedTools
• Propertybase
• Real Estate Webmasters
• Realty Juggler
• SalesForce
• Seize the Market
• Team Leads
• Brivity

Others I’ve seen mentioned around the Internets:

• Realvolve
• Wise Agent
• LeadingAgent
• TheHub

Finding the Perfect Underwear

Asking “which CRM do you like and why?” is like asking “boxers or briefs?”. For women, it’s more like, “bikini, high cut, thong, briefs, boy shorts, or hip huggers?” What’s comfortable for one admin or team will not be comfortable for another. You will never know what works until you try them on. And just like underwear you can’t return, you gotta pay the price to figure out what works. Every CRM needs to be built out. Some are more robust than others, but NOTHING (and I promise this) does EVERYTHING you want it to do.