Automating Real Estate Operations: A Case Study on Reducing Follow-Up Time by 90%

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In the highly competitive real estate market, quick response to leads and efficient management of these leads are crucial. Jonathon Kerester, the managing broker at Realty Investment Advisors (RIA), was faced with the challenge of connecting email marketing and customer support tools. He needed a system where Zendesk tickets would be automatically filled out whenever leads subscribed to specific newsletters in Mailchimp or updated their profiles with RIA. The challenge was to reduce the time spent on cold calling and to connect with leads faster. The goal was to automate the initial follow-ups and lead management to increase efficiency and productivity.

Realty Investment Advisors is a group of real estate brokers and agents operating across northern Virginia, suburban Maryland, and the D.C. metro area. They collaborate with each other, sharing resources and infrastructure. Each agent or broker has their niche, whether in downtown DC for businesses or in suburbs for families. They were looking for a solution to automate their lead management and follow-up process to increase efficiency and productivity.

Jonathon turned to Zapier, an app automation tool, to handle initial follow-ups and lead management. He built automated workflows, or 'Zaps', that sent lead information from Mailchimp into Zendesk. He also created Zaps to share new campaigns on social media, create tickets from text messages, and manage new leads in Trello, the app they use for project management. Once the tickets were automatically created, other Zaps kept the leads moving through the RIA process. Zapier added a new Trello card to a specific list for new leads. Within that Trello board, the RIA team could move leads around depending on their current status—Open, Pending, Closed—and they could add comments and details as needed after showing off properties. RIA also used Zapier to send Slack notifications for new Zendesk tickets, keeping the entire team updated about new leads, clients, and what type of property they were after. New text messages became Zendesk tickets, where they could be associated with existing leads.

• The automation of processes with Zapier significantly improved RIA's operational efficiency. The automated workflows not only reduced the time spent on cold calling and lead follow-ups, but also kept the entire team updated about new leads and clients. This allowed the team to quickly identify who should handle each lead based on location and property type. The automation also freed up Jonathon's time, allowing him to focus on more important tasks such as showing off properties, meeting clients, writing contracts, and closing transactions. Overall, the use of Zapier transformed RIA's operations, making them more efficient and productive.

• Reduced cold calling by 75%

• Connected with leads 90% faster

• Cut the time it took the team to follow up on leads by 90%