What’s Your Favorite Real Estate CRM? Three Agents Share Theirs

There’s no question that customer relationship management (CRM) systems automate a number of tasks that can save you time, effort and, yes, even money. Just as importantly, they also make it easy to respond quickly and professionally to online inquiries from contacts. With so many CRMs to choose from, how do you know which one will best suit your needs?

We asked three real estate agents what their favorite CRM is and why. Here’s what they said.

BoomTown

For Fargo-based John Knosalla, the most important functionality BoomTown provides is funneling all incoming information — whether that’s an online inquiry or a home valuation request — to a central location.

“Even more than it being a CRM, it’s our website, acting as our landing page with a fully functional IDX feed as well,” Knosalla explained. “It’s a universal landing spot for all our leads and I really like that you can see the source it came from.”

Knosalla has BoomTown automatically rotate incoming leads for his team so that when they come in, they’re sent directly to the team leader who assigns them to the next available agent. He also makes use of the CRM’s drip campaigns, which he says don’t require any tweaking before sending and can be sent from a laptop to a mobile device and appear as a regular text message.

“For all intents and purposes, BoomTown does what we need it to do,” Knosalla added.

Follow Up Boss

Automatic lead distribution is a feature that Robert Slack also uses most frequently on his CRM, Follow Up Boss. For Slack’s team in Ocala, Florida, the convenience isn’t so much about the time they save by having the task automated; it’s about generating a nearly instantaneous response to the inquiry.

“It’s something like 20 seconds between the person clicking on the property and getting a response from us,” Slack pointed out. “That’s imperative because online leads have a very short attention span and they’ll go onto the next agent very quickly.”

Slack’s favorite functionality combines Follow Up Boss’ lead distribution with its automated text responder. The text responder references the person’s name, the property address they clicked on, asks for the best time to call back and references Slack’s company by name. The personalized text message appears to come from the agent who will call them back.

“There are all kinds of different CRMs and we’re happy with Follow Up Boss,” Slack affirmed. “We’ll stick with this until someone can show us something much better.”

Realvolve

When she needed to upgrade her CRM from one that excelled at supporting a single agent operation to one that could support her larger real estate team in Saint Charles, Illinois, Leslie Ebersole chose Realvolve — specifically, for its automated workflows that organize her client communications. These include everything from one-to-one interactions with prospects and clients to drip marketing campaigns sent to a bigger audience.

“Some people think a CRM is only for email marketing, but it’s much more than that,” Ebersole explained. “It’s for interaction with clients and consumers over time, capturing information and sharing it with them.”

Ebersole occasionally uses templates from her original CRM for one-to-one messages; when she needs to do one-to-many communications, she sometimes integrates an email program with a third, different CRM. Although she likes these other two systems, Ebersole feels their functionality is scaled more appropriately for a single agent; she will eventually replace both with Realvolve to support her larger team.

“Sometimes you’re sharing marketing information with prospects and clients, and sometimes it’s about the transactions you make,” Ebersole remarked. “In either case, that comprehensive functionality is why we chose Realvolve.”

Most real estate agents carry out the same tasks every day – the CRM they choose is the one that best helps them automate those tasks. When it comes to selecting a CRM, the best one for you is the one you’ll actually use on a daily basis. Investigate, ask around and try them on a trial basis. Then let us know: Which CRM is your favorite?