Instant communication - here's why it's so vital for agents

Excellent levels of customer service become increasingly important in a tougher marketplace.

While the property market is still buoyant, the cost-of-living crisis, global factors and recent domestic events have certainly had an impact and the talk of a slight slowdown or downturn is persistent.

In such times as these, keeping hold of existing clients or winning repeat custom can help your business to grow and thrive. Generating and nurturing new and existing leads is also vital.

With a tougher market on the horizon, any opportunities that come your way need to be maximised and not allowed to slip through the net, while having the right automation and tech in place can enable you to ensure no messages are missed and any potential prospects are given the care and attention they need.

One way in which to keep ahead of your competition, and provide the best possible service to your clients, is to ensure you respond quickly to any queries or issues.

That’s why instant communication is so important, whether via pop-up chatbots, automated messaging on apps or other forms of instant messaging.

Never miss an opportunity

Often, information requests are made outside of working hours, a time when people like to switch off and dedicate time to activities other than work. Research we carried out earlier this year found that the most popular time for valuation requests – which enable agents to capture crucial landlord and vendor data – was between 7.00am and 7.59am, before most people get to work.

That’s a lot of potential leads lost if there isn’t something there and then to engage them. One of the most effective ways of doing this 24/7 is via a chatbot, offering that real-time communication to prospects.

This is where instant communication tools like ChatPal come into their own - automated to help agents to generate accurate and precise responses and keep leads alive. Crucially, ChatPal also provides the option for live chat or a chatbot which has been pre-designed and tested to maximise vendor and landlord leads.

As one of the quickest ways to provide customers with support 24/7, chatbots have been experiencing a significant rise in popularity.

In fact, according to new findings, 79% of businesses said that implementing live chat resulted in increased sales, customer loyalty, and revenue.

There are other forms of instant communication, of course – one of the best of which is social media. Responding quickly to queries can help to improve your standing among your client base.

There is also the technology available to integrate all your communication methods under one umbrella (including Facebook messenger, WhatsApp and website chatbots), so you never miss out on any crucial opportunities. It’s important not to neglect any of these platforms and to take a multi-pronged approach to instant communication.

Meet the expectations of today’s customer 

Like with any service, clients appreciate speedy responses as these are usually an indication that the company is efficient and can help with queries in a fast fashion.

Statistics show that 53% of customers prefer live chat compared to phone calls. As such, agents who have a variety of instant communication options available put themselves in a better position to align with client values and expectations.

The importance of instant communication cannot be overlooked – if you don’t respond in a timely manner, you could be missing out on opportunities and having a direct (negative) effect on your bottom line. Engaging immediately with potential prospects can improve your chances of winning them over and gaining more instructions when they are potentially harder to come by.  

It is down to agents to ensure the right software and communication tools are integrated into their company to make instant engagement and communication a possibility.

Here at The ValPal Network, one of the suite of products we offer our agents is ChatPal, an automated bot which targets sellers and landlords by using pre-designed scripts to cover any given scenario. It’s there as the first port of call, that first communication, 24/7, to keep those leads hot for agents to follow up with.

We recently upgraded ChatPal to ChatPal Premium, which combines WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and LiveChat in a single platform – an instant communication nirvana, in other words.  

As the property market continues to become more competitive, agents hoping to meet the demands of their target audience should utilise instant communication as much as possible to react fast, stay ahead of your competition and boost the bottom line of your business.

For more information on how instant communication tools could work for you, please get in touch with us on team@valpal.co.uk or give us a call on 020 8663 4930.