Leading Real Estate Developer takes a giant leap towards offering an enhanced customer experience
Alef Group, the leading real estate and retail developer in the Emirate of Sharjah, has partnered with Metadata Technologies to implement a world-class Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. The group selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Property-xRM, a Real Estate CRM Solution to streamline customer management, boost operational efficiency, and improve productivity.
Alef Group
“We were on the lookout for an intuitive CRM solution with functionalities that met and enhanced our daily operational requirements. Metadata’s ready-to-use industry-standard solution helps in addressing those requirements and allows quicker implementation with customization capabilities,” Alef Group stated.
Alef Group’s expedited growth will benefit greatly from the automation and digitalization features of the solution. This will significantly decrease the duration needed for tenant onboarding and documentation, ultimately enhancing efficiency and productivity. The system-generated lease contract eliminates the need for manual intervention and can now be completed with just a few clicks of a button.
“This solution will empower our front-end sales executives to have more visibility into their day-to-day client interactions with updated information to drive meaningful conversations with an emphasis on improving customer service. Our customers also stand to benefit immensely from this initiative,”stated a spokesperson for Alef Group.
The primary objective of the leading Real Estate Developer is to harness the potential of its fully automated system and utilize its robust reporting capabilities to produce pertinent reports for management purposes. By doing so, the workload on sales support staff will be reduced significantly.
Property-xRM for Sales and Retail Management are equipped with advanced functionalities, including property shortlisting, booking & document management, unit sales management, and post-sales management such as transfer and cancellation, which enable efficient usage.
“We are thrilled to work with Alef Group and look forward to contributing to their digital initiative. With a powerful Microsoft-based solution, Alef will have more insights into their business, and will be able to scale rapidly“– said Mr. Rasheed Muhammed, Managing Director of Metadata Technologies.
The maturity of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Property-xRM helps to cater to all the major revenue-generating aspects of a real estate company’s operations. As Gold Microsoft Partners, Metadata Technologies, a CRM company has been providing solutions to large Real Estate Developers and Property Management companies for over 20 years.
Reach out to us to schedule a free demo for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Property-xRM.
A ‘CRM for Homebuilders’ increases sales and revenue. Customer Relationship Management software is a must-have for every Homebuilder. A CRM is vital in building relationships with customers and helping them find their dream homes faster. We will look into how Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Property-xRM help to achieve this for the Real Estate sector.
Sections
1. Why a CRM for Homebuilders?
2. Microsoft Dynamics 365: Perfect Homebuilder CRM
3. Four reasons why Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the best CRM for Homebuilders
4. CRM for Homebuilders: A must for effective Sales
5. Conclusion
Why a CRM for Homebuilders?
Let’s start with the why. I will point out three of the most obvious reasons and you tell me if you relate to them.
1. Lead and Opportunity Management: By automating sales processes to never miss a meeting or follow-up with a potential resident.
2. Lead scoring and Relationship Analytics: Providing real-time insights into your relationships with homeowners or tenants.
3. Personalized conversations: Engaging home buyers in personalized communication from start to finish.
This helps you to understand a home buyer’s needs. You can then prioritize and personalize communications with them. With timely reminders from a CRM, you can also follow up swiftly.
In addition, you are armed with data and analytics to personalize communications. As a result, you can develop deep and meaningful relationships with homeowners. Finally, you take a buyer from stranger to advocate by leading them through a customer journey crafted exclusively to address their needs.
5 Reasons Why Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the Best CRM for Homebuilders
1. Systematic Inventory and Lead Management
Microsoft Dynamics 365-based Property-xRM promotes systematic real estate lead management. Streamline the lead-to-deal cycle for home sales and leases. Capture leads from multiple channels into a single database and define automated to-do lists for agents. Leverage the latest in Artificial Intelligence to score leads based on conversion likelihood with automated follow-up reminders to help agents close maximum deals. Share system-generated proposals, create agreements, and manage approvals with ease to boost efficiency.
With systematic inventory management, get a real-time view of units and properties. Empower agents with updated information while dealing with prospective homebuyers. Block or release units from the inventory and manage user-wise access to properties. Set differential pricing for units based on demand and make revenue-maximizing decisions.
2. Powerful and Integrated Platform
Access all your data in one place without having to log into multiple systems or worry about missing important information on any of your systems. Microsoft Dynamics 365is a powerful platform that brings togetherMarketing, Home Sales (Sales), Resident Service (Customer Service), Facilities Management (Field Service), and Finance, making it easy to build relationships with owners, interact and manage complex sales processes, and maximize revenue opportunities.
So, when a prospect who has already interacted with your firm, calls up to enquire about his new home, the Real Estate CRM ensures that your customer representative is fed with the necessary information. This will help him take the best course of action, wherever the client is in the customer journey.
3.Help make informed decisions
A Homebuilder CRM like Property-xRM prioritizes your most important tasks and unveils hidden opportunities with comprehensive reports. This helps to make informed decisions. For example, if you’re trying to sell a property in a specific area, the CRM will show you where all of the properties similar in price have sold and how many days it took for them to sell. You can use this information when marketing to create relevant buyer personas for your home listing on social media. Alternatively, it could also help decide which exact channels to hit up when using more traditional channels like newspapers or realtor websites.
4. Customized dashboards that keep you on track
It lets you create customized dashboards that keep you on track by sharing insights. This helps to optimize sales processes and drive revenue.
Property-xRM Dashboard View for Residential Sales
For instance, if a prospect is interested in buying a home from your real estate agent but hasn’t made an offer yet (but has indicated their interest), then this information would be included in their dashboard. It helps them understand where their marketing efforts need improvement or how they can best position themselves for future deals.
This type of data will help increase sales by providing better visibility into how well each campaign is trending over time. As a result, it will improve decision-making throughout the entire process!
5. Anywhere on Any device
Sales App of Microsoft Dynamics 365-based Property-xRM
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers consistent processes anywhere on any device, helping you work efficiently from anywhere.
With a solution like Property-xRM Sales App, you will be able to leverage the capabilities of a Real Estate CRM anywhere, at any time. You will able to convert leads quickly, provide digital walkthroughs of the property to potential homeowners and communicate remotely with your team.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides the ultimate CRM for Homebuilders. It offers consistent processes across all your devices, allowing you to work more efficiently from anywhere.
CRM for Homebuilders: A Must for Effective Sales
A CRM for Homebuilders is a must for more effective sales practices. It helps you create a better buyer experience and increase your sales, which in turn will help you sell more homes faster and generate higher revenue.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one of the most powerful CRM out there, which makes it an ideal choice for real estate professionals who want to compete with others in their area or even across the country!
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it all comes down to your bottom line. To succeed in the real estate business, a CRM is one of the most effective tools you can use. It can help you increase sales by giving you more time and resources for effective marketing. It can also save hours of manual admin work so that you can focus on where it really matters – Your Customer.
Property-xRM, CRM for Homebuilders is built atop Microsoft Dynamics 365. We have been creating Sales Superstars in Real estate for more than two decades now.
Real Estate CRM and Property Management Software often come across as two separate solutions. One is used to streamline customer (resident) engagements and the other to track property financials. Now, with disparate applications comes the challenge of data fragmentation, duplication of efforts, lack of a holistic view of customers, and limited automation capabilities, all resulting in increased costs.
First, let us get a complete understanding of CRM Property Management Software. Then we will understand its application among the three major functions of the Real Estate Industry: Sales, Leasing, and Facilities Management.
What is CRM Property Management Software?
CRM for Property Management is a solution that helps landlords and property managers streamline their operations. The software provides a centralized database for storing customer and tenant information, as well as a suite of functionalities for managing properties, tracking leads, and marketing units. Combine this with the latest in AI and GPT technology, you can do more with less.
CRM Property Management Software typically includes a contact manager, which allows users to store and organize contact information for tenants, prospects, vendors, and other stakeholders. An inventory master with a unit manager helps users to keep track of available units, rental prices, lease terms, and move-in dates. In addition, CRM-based solutions like Property-xRM also include a work order manager, which enables landlords to track repair and maintenance requests.
Some of the additional features in such solutions include document management, financial reporting, accounting integration, and website builders. Built-in customer relationship management (CRM) tools help landlords, property managers, and real estate companies manage their interactions with tenants.
Benefits of CRM Property Management Software for the Real Estate Industry
In the real estate industry, CRM Property Management Software provides several benefits. By automating and streamlining tasks such as lead tracking, contact management, and marketing, CRM-based software can save you time and money while helping you better manage your properties. In addition, it can help you improve communication with your tenants, landlords, and other key stakeholders. By providing a centralized platform for managing all your property-related information, CRM-based software can help you make better decisions about your properties and improve your overall business efficiency.
A. For Residential Sales
Property-xRM Dashboard View for Residential Sales
Be it, Single family, Multi-family, or Condos, it is important to keep track of your sales. With a powerful CRM engine, you can easily track which properties are selling and which ones need more effort. This information can help you make decisions about pricing, marketing, and other factors that impact your bottom line.
In addition, a CRM system can help you track your leads. When a prospective buyer shows interest in one of your properties, you can quickly add them to your CRM database and begin tracking their interactions with your company. Systematic lead management insights can be invaluable when it is time to close the sale.
Sales App of Microsoft Dynamics 365-based Property-xRM
Finally, Real Estate CRM can help you stay organized and efficient. With all of your sales information in one place, you can easily see where your time and energy need to be focused. This can help you increase your productivity and close more deals.
If you manage a property with multiple units, then you know how important it is to keep track of your tenants. You need to know who is moving in and out, when rent is due, and what maintenance needs to be done. This can be a lot to keep track of, especially if you don’t have a system in place.
That’s where CRM Property Management Softwarecomes in. This type of software can help you keep track of your tenants, as well as your properties. It can also help you with marketing, lease management, flexible pricing, contract generation, and post-lease transactions as well. With Property-xRM for Retail, stay on top of your of retail portfolio, finding the right tenants and brands to maximize revenue.
Here are some of the benefits of using CRM-based property management software for Leasing:
1. Retain and build relations with your tenants: Tenants can access information including contracts, invoices raised, maintenance status, and payments. You will be able to use the Customer portals for push marketing to list information on available properties.
2. Marketing and leasing: If you’re looking for new tenants, CRM-based software can help you with marketing and leasing. You can use the software to create marketing materials, list units on third-party websites, capture multi-channel leads, and streamline the lease process. This will save you time and money in the long run.
3. Maintenance: If you have multiple units, then chances are there is always something that needs to be fixed or maintained. With Property-xRM, easily keep track of what needs to be done and when. A CRM-based Property Management Software ensures that all your work orders are streamlined and your vendors are organized and can be communicated to with ease.
C. For Facilities or Asset Management
1. Central Repository
One of the main benefits of having cloud-based facilities management software is that there is a central location that holds all of your data. This data is accessible to relevant departments like the leasing team or asset management team. With a Microsoft-based Field Service solution, expect to do more at every juncture of the maintenance process.
Avoiding data silos in the organization by having a provision of a central location to store all the valuable information about previous maintenance history can help analyze and drive insight-based actions to better the facilities management operations of an organization.
2. Keep track of all your Assets
Ever found yourself in a situation where you don’t know what’s going on with the assets on your property? We hear you.
Location and health are the two main data points that need to be tracked about an asset. Good facilities management software will let you know exactly where an asset is located, pinning down the property and unit under which that asset is situated.
Keep track of assets systematically by capturing all necessary details about them. The warranty period, replacement due dates, contractor maintenance information, and tenant-level association – have this data securely collected and stored. More importantly, do it for all the assets in your portfolio, so you know the place, duration, and maintenance record of your assets.
3. Automated Work Order Creation
Streamline Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) and Reactive Maintenance (RM) Processes.
PPM is an agreement created between a real estate company and a service provider. Usually, real estate firms manually reach out or email their vendors. They also have to call up the contractors to get updates on the work, till it is completed. It is also likely that some of these dates will get missed and, in such situations, firms don’t realize there is a problem until it is too late.
RM, on the other hand, are more ad-hoc maintenance requests that need to be resolved.
Automating work orders ensures that the PPMs and RMs are streamlined right from the time an issue is captured at a unit. This can be done by the resident through a portal, via email, or by phone. Then there is job creation, service level agreements (SLA), and technician assignment until finally the issue is resolved and the facilities are working efficiently. This ensures a smooth and hassle-free maintenance experience for the facilities management operations of a real estate firm.
Overall, CRM Property Management Software provides several advantages and benefits that can be extremely helpful for facilities managers. If you’re looking for a way to streamline your operations and save time and money, learn about the benefits of Facility Management Software.
Conclusion
If you are a property management company or a real estate operator, then CRM software for Property Management is something you should consider. This type of software can help you keep track of your properties, tenants, and finances, all in one place. Not only that, it can also help you streamline your operations and save time and money in the long run. So if you are looking for a way to improve your property management business, be sure to check out Property-xRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Are you using Real Estate Leasing software to run your business? If you are, is it software built on a CRM platform?
If your Real Estate Leasing software focuses only on the financial side of things, maybe it’s time to shift the focus onto the tenant. Let’s face it, without happy tenants, your real estate business could be in trouble. That’s why it’s important to have leasing software that not only helps you manage finances but also puts the tenant’s needs front and center.
Some people still believe leasing can run well on a conventional system! Time and again, firms that were not quick to adapt to innovations paid the price, while their more tech-savvy competitors have progressed fast.
Technology is always a driver of change. By prioritizing tenant satisfaction, you’ll be able to attract and retain high-quality tenants, reduce turnover, and ultimately boost your bottom line. So, let’s get excited about leasing software that makes tenants feel like VIPs!
In this blog, we are going to understand the benefits of Real Estate Leasing software powered by a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) engine.
CRM Real Estate Leasing Software: Key to Leasing Success
What is CRM for Leasing?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business philosophy. For real estate, it is an approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and potential tenants. It is strongly rooted in the belief that customers are at the heart of a business.
Property-xRM Real Estate leasing software leverages CRM capabilities. It has a customer-focused product design. As a result, it helps to build durable tenant relationships. This, in turn, helps generate higher revenues for firms in the long run.
Benefits of using CRM-Real Estate Leasing Software
1. Easily accessible records on every tenant, with a clear project-property-unit inventory overview.
2. Data analysis to study a tenant’s payment or occupancy history with the company.
3. The ability to personalize tenant communications and provide relevance.
4. Improve tenant retention by understanding their needs better.
Therefore, with a CRM-powered solution, businesses can easily access tenant data and obtain valuable insights about target audiences.
Capture incoming leads from every channel. Be it email marketing campaigns, walk-ins, websites, social media, or property listing websites.
Property leasing companies have often relied on incoming leads. In today’s internet-connected world, leads come from various channels. So, being able to centralize all the inquiries into a single database becomes very important. With CRM-based leasing software, you can easily manage your contacts, track leads and deals, and stay on top of your pipeline.
A good CRM-based system has a lead capture system in place to store the relevant information of incoming leads along with their preferences. Further, it will store, classify and score the captured leads.
Capture leads from every channel
Ears Everywhere
In this day and age, prospective tenants are everywhere. So, an omnichannel engagement strategy, where leads and tenants can communicate via any channel with the company is of paramount importance. CRM software acts as a facilitator by driving communications from various sources directly into the system. A CRM captures the opinions of customers, provides historic data of all interactions, and comes with an integrated marketing module.
Real Estate Leasing software assists in the following ways:
A. Automatically or manually assign leads to the right leasing executive for follow-up and closing.
B. Frequent customer data updates for better communication.
C. Capturing and maintaining all-important customer identification documents (e.g. Government ID).
Proactive Agents
For existing tenants, reminders like 60-day and 90-day lease period termination help leasing agents to be proactive. Thereby, tenants are retained for longer periods of time. They are also kept happy throughout their lease periods with self-servicing capabilities for scheduling maintenance and raising complaints through a resident portal (tenant portal).
This can be incredibly valuable when it comes to making informed decisions about your marketing and lease strategies. Slice and dice data into the property and unit-level information for insights into the performance of the portfolio and the leasing teams. This includes vacancy information, revenue generated, exposure levels, lead-to-lease conversions, lease settlement reports, penalty calculations, and literally anything you wish to see.
Inventory is quite arguably the most important aspect of a real estate business. So, naturally, having clear visibility into the portfolio details is critical.
With a CRM-based leasing solution, you can store all of your inventory data in a centralized database. This makes it easy to keep track of all your properties, units, and other assets in one place. You can easily view the status of each property, including availability, occupancy, and upcoming vacancies.
A CRM-based leasing solution can also help you automate many aspects of your inventory management workflow. For example, you can set up automated alerts or notifications for when a unit is about to become vacant or when a lease is about to expire. You can also automate tasks such as rent collection, lease renewals, and move-in/move-out inspections.
In addition, with customizable reporting, integration with other systems, and improved customer experience, you can streamline your processes, reduce errors, and make more informed decisions about your properties.
3. Smart automation
Team members end up spending the majority of their time on repetitive tasks that could easily be automated. For instance, the process of documentation for a lease transaction is a mundane administrative task. And if you’re a leasing representative who manually generates these documents, you know that the challenge is real.
A real estate CRM-based leasing software can be a game-changer for streamlining the documentation process across booking forms, contracts, and agreements. By automating these processes, you can save yourself and your team a significant amount of time. This, in turn, allows you to focus on more important tasks such as providing excellent customer service and growing your business. With shorter lease cycles, ensure that the customer waiting time is at a minimum.
A CRM-based Real Estate Leasing software has all the information in it to quickly generate:
a. Accurate Booking Forms
b. Proposals and Lease Agreements
c. Receipts and Invoices
This lets you easily create the required documents in a fraction of the time.
CRM-based leasing software solutions offer powerful automation tools that can streamline your workflow and save you time. For example, you can set up automated email campaigns that target specific segments of your client base, or use automated lead scoring to prioritize your leasing efforts.
4. Enhanced Reporting
If you are bound by the reporting capabilities offered by your real estate software, then it’s time to take things under your control. CRM-based solutions like Property-xRM offer customizable dashboards that give you a real-time overview of your pipeline, as well as detailed insights into your tenants’ behavior and preferences. Not just that, should you wish to create a specific dashboard based on specific criteria, the process is just a few clicks away.
5. Integrations with the Accounting System
Quite often, leasing companies have an accounting system independent of their front-end systems. This makes it mandatory to cross-check financial entries for the lease agreement, receipts, and invoices and involves some levels of manual intervention. This method is time-consuming and prone to errors.
A technology platform like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Real Estate leverages a common database for CRM, Accounting, and Lease Management. This promotes a single source of truth with a 360-degree view of a lease contract.
Now, if you’re already using an accounting system (ERP), you can integrate the financials with the front-end system to ensure a seamless flow of information.
With Real Estate leasing software leveraging customer relationship management capabilities, organizations can provide personalized services to tenants and prospects by utilizing the customer service module. A CRM-based system opens up multiple channels for tenants to approach the leasing companies for services like unit termination, lease renewal, maintenance requests, etc.
Alternatively, portals and mobile applications come in handy to empower tenants with self-servicing capabilities at the comfort of their homes.
Personalized Conversations
Customer Telephone Integration (CTI): To streamline customer service, property companies can adopt a CTI integration that allows front-end leasing executives to be connected with CRM information. For example, when a call comes in from a contact who previously interacted with the leasing representative, relevant details stored in the CRM automatically appear on his/her desktop screen. This may include information from the last call with unit preference details, the customer budget, etc. This helps the representative to personalize the conversation and leaves the customer with a wow feeling.
At the same time, in case of a new inquiry via phone call or email, a CRM-powered leasing system allows users to automatically create a new record directly in the database. In recent times, the advancement in AI has allowed for a highly automated, yet personalized approach towards handling customers. This again, reduces the mundane tasks and allows the leasing executive to focus on building relationships with the prospective tenants.
This way, a company can be all ears to every inquiry of a tenant or a would-be tenant.
Property-xRM and CRM for Leasing
Property-xRM Real Estate Leasing software is built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM platform with solutions for Residential, Commercial and Retail portfolios.
For over 20+ years, we have worked closely with Real Estate companies to develop our Property Management software. We have learned more about the leasing sector every year and how we can help increase profitability. As a result, we have consistently been helping real estate companies generate higher revenues and happier tenants at decreased costs.
We are here to envision a future for AI in Facility Management with ChatGPT and Microsoft Technology. Take heed, because this future is not too far away, we are talking two or three years down the line. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadela, talking about the impact of AI on business applications at the launch of the Microsoft Business Applications 2023 event, said “Rapid Innovation is gonna come, in fact, a race starts today”.
The recent developments in Microsoft Technology and OpenAI’s ChatGPT(where Microsoft has a 49% stake) have created an atmosphere of curiosity and mystery. We will clear the fog by providing a clear vision of how we believe the latest in tech from Microsoft and its Generative AI will change the future of facilities management.
AI in Facility Management and the Latest Updates
1. AI-powered Conversation Bots
Imagine one of your tenants, let’s call him Bob, has a problem with the Air Conditioning at his apartment. Getting hot and frustrated, he decides to raise a complaint through the resident portal. Now, as the property management team, you are ready to take Bob’s anger and frustration and change it into a customer service success story. Because the portal will be equipped with a customer service bot powered by OpenAI. It will be specifically trained on all the documentation on facility maintenance and resolution of complaints of the company.
The customer service bot listens to Bob’s complaint and then engages in a conversation to uncover the root cause of the problem. It can also provide a few quick resolutions to the problem thereby reducing the number of escalations. Further, the bot can move on to create cases and assign the best technician for the job. In case, the issue requires the assistance of a specialized agent then the bot can provide all the necessary details to the agent for faster resolution.
2. Customer Service Agent & AI
Alternatively, when faced with an issue Bob can start a call with a customer service agent. Now the agent can procure the relevant information within a few moments instead of searching through the vast set of knowledge resources. This is possible because an AI-powered Chatbot will work alongside the customer representative. Customer service can ask the bot in natural language for solutions. The bot will be trained on all the knowledge resources of the firm and in addition can access resources like the website of the firm. (which could have documentation on issues and their resolutions)
The customer service agent can ask a question to this Chatbot and get resolutions. Also, as soon as there’s an inquiry from Bob, it can be captured by AI directly in natural language. The AI in Facility Management then provides real-time responses to assist the customer service representative. The bot will work in parallel to bring forth solutions in a matter of moments. It does this by searching through and consolidating knowledge from the entire library of resources.
This can then be quickly conveyed to Bob and necessary steps can be taken for resolution. The AI bot will uncover the necessary information from the knowledge resources and then pass on the same in natural language to the customer service agent. The customer service agent quickly checks it, copies it, makes minor edits if necessary, and communicates it with the customer.
3. Microsoft Viva Sales with Generative AI
The customer service agent can generate an email with the necessary information in a couple of minutes. Microsoft Viva Sales with Generative AI helps auto-generate the email’s content by pulling in relevant data from the CRM or previous email threads. It can be either approved or minor corrections can be made and sent to the technician/customer quickly.
4. Customer Support Swarming
When working on time-sensitive and complex issues, it is useful to take the help of co-workers outside of the customer service team. This is where swarming comes in, it helps to collaborate with experts across the organization to get help on complex issues. You can also use an expert finder feature, to quickly locate experts with the right skills outside the organization to solve the issue.
So when faced with a facility management issue, the customer support executive can bring together experts across different departments and external resource persons to collaborate and solve the problem quickly and effectively.
5. Remote Assist
Now, consider the technician visiting the resident’s apartment to fix the issue with the AC. The technician can utilize Holo Lens 2 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist to easily communicate with experts remotely to solve an issue.
The technicians can also have an advanced version of the Chatbot. So, instead of contacting experts every time in the event of a roadblock, they can at first, try to fix the issue themselves. This can be enabled by creating a technician’s AI Chatbot that is trained on all the knowledge resources and advanced knowledge articles of the firm. The intelligent conversational bots can help the technicians with valuable information to resolve the issue.
Imagine a large real estate operator that does not use Facilities Management Software. With more than a thousand units, keeping track of assets becomes an impossible task. Different properties in multiple locations will have assets scattered across them.
Now assume, they have more than 200 vendors they contact of which let’s say 50 contractors are their regulars.
At the moment, they are manually calling or emailing every contractor to get updates on work orders. Back-and-forth calls, resulting in a loss of valuable employee time.
1. Lets users keep track of all the assets and notify them when replacements are due.
2. Automate all work order creations and Service Level Agreements (SLA).
3. A mobile app that lets your technicians or contractors get work orders and location maps on their mobile phones.
4. Gives a bird’s eye view of the preventive and reactive maintenance operations of all the units.
5. AI-powered insights transform all of the data collected on maintenance operations to make better decisions.
What is a Facilities Management Software?
Facilities Management Software is a Proptech product that makes facilities management easier and more efficient by implementing functions like asset management and work order automation. It simplifies and streamlines the reactive and planned preventive maintenance processes. Property-xRM is designed as a facilities management software specifically for real estate companies.
Let us discuss some of the main challenges faced by facilities management companies. Usually, these firms have no systems in place or are using legacy systems to do their facilities management grunt work.
Top Challenges of Facilities Management Companies
We have listed out some of the challenges faced by facilities management companies from our experience and the respective solutions we offered with Property-xRM.
#
Challenges
Solutions
1
Can’t keep track of assets and their maintenance.
Defined Asset and Location Plan
2
Reactive maintenance is time-consuming. Individually calling up or e-mailing every vendor.
Work Order Automation
3
Finding it tough to keep track of all the information in the organization, thus creating data silos.
Central Repository of Data
4
Irregular maintenance with no system in place.
Planned Preventive Maintenance Agreements
5
Assets are managed in Excel sheets without ‘Asset history’.
360-degree view of Assets
4 Benefits of a Facilities Management Software
The solutions that Property-xRM offer are based upon these key challenges faced by facilities management companies and we see them daily.
Let us see the solutions offered by facilities management software:
1. Central Repository of Data
One of the main benefits of having cloud-based facilities management software is the central location that holds all asset-related data. Data can be viewed across departments like the FM (asset management), or finance team meaning that the service teams can view the history of work orders generated, the asset management team can gauge the condition of the assets, and the finance team can view expenses incurred.
Avoid data silos in the organization and store all information about asset maintenance history. This helps with easier analysis and insight-driven actions, driving better facilities management operations for an organization.
2. Keep track of all your assets
An asset is tracked using two main data points: Location and Date of Purchase. A good facility management software will let you know exactly where an asset is located, pinning down the property and unit under which that asset is situated.
Keep track of assets systematically by gathering all the details about an asset – everything from the property and unit under which it falls, to which tenant the asset is associated. More importantly, it applies across all the assets of a real estate company, so as an FM supervisor, you know the place, operating duration, and maintenance record of every one of your assets.
For example, not knowing when the roof of a property was replaced, the HVAC system was last serviced, or when the plumbing assets were last repaired may result in delays during move-in. Systematic tracking of assets and spare parts helps FM teams to gauge the health of the property at all times, ensuring higher levels of service efficiency.
3. Automated work order creation
To ensure periodic assessment of facilities, a Real Estate company can create a Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) Agreement with the service provider using Facility Management Software. For example, lift maintenance can take place in a systematic manner in all the properties, without the interference of a facility manager to issue work orders for such repetitive works. Likewise, for reactive maintenance, the appropriate technicians can be assigned through a work order scheduler when an issue is raised.
Usually, real estate firms manually call up or email their contractors to get updates on the status of work. This means that there is always a risk of maintenance due dates getting missed. As a result, firms don’t realize there is a problem unless one pops up, leaving the loose ends uncovered.
Automation of Work Orders
With systematic Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) and Reactive Maintenance (RM) agreements, processes are streamlined right from the time an issue arises at a unit.
– A complaint gets registered by the resident through the mobile app or the online portal.
– Accordingly, a work order gets automatically generated and a technician with the right skillset gets assigned.
– Further, a job card is created, SLAs are triggered based on priorities, and the resolution gets underway.
– Finally, the work order gets closed once the resident approves of the work, and then the technician completes the necessary procedures.
– The FM supervisor gets notified and thus, the maintenance cycle gets completed.
This seamless process ensures a hassle-free maintenance experience for the residents and the real estate firm.
4. Technician Mobile App
A mobile app empowers technicians, contractors, and the FM supervisor to be in sync during issue resolution and promotes efficiency by reducing manual intervention. Through the app, the technician can access the location, work type, SLA, and the necessary information he needs to get going on the job.
It starts with a push notification or (and) an email to get the resolution process started. Upon completion of the job, technicians can seek single or multi-level approvals before closing a work order. ‘Before and after images’ can also be captured through the app which helps to keep parties notified. This way, there is a streamlined process that guides the technician, every step of the way.
What is CRM in Facilities Management?
Using the Property-xRM Facilities Management Software, companies can proactively keep properties in perfect condition. CRM in facilities management (FM) views the Facilities management function as a customer-intensive business function rather than a cost center for facilities services.
And the management element suggests that Facilities Management will play an active rather than passive role in shaping the customer’s impression of service success. CRM in the Facilities Management business is based on identifying and addressing gaps between consumer expectations and service delivery reality.
A recent Microsoft survey found that 9 out of 10 workers hope to reduce their workload by getting AI to do repetitive tasks at work. In today’s world that’s digitally transforming at a rate like never before, businesses are looking to bring higher levels of efficiency at scale into daily operations.
Over the years Microsoft has proactively leveraged AI in Azure Cloud, in business applications across CRM & ERP, and on the Low-code Power Platform. This includes key automation and insights along the lines of conversational intelligence, lead scoring, predictive analysis, forecasts, the AI Builder – the list just goes on.
However, the groundbreaking headline in recent times has been the buzz around OpenAI’s generative AI – The ChatGPT. In a record advent-to-implementation plan, Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to bring GPT capabilities natively into the Microsoft Ecosystem. If you’re a Microsoft user, it certainly is exciting news! And if you’re not, it’s time to explore what this is really about.
Building on the GPT capabilities, Microsoft recently announced the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot. With this update, the conversation on AI is no longer “How can I use ChatGPT?”.
It’s now a much broader question: “What all can AI do for me?”
The AI Timeline for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
2023 has already been ground-breaking and we are only 3 months in. With all that’s been going around, one thing is clear – the future of technology is here. While the likes of Google and Salesforce have come up with their AI technology releases, the extent of Microsoft’s AI adoption is what makes it stand out.
Not just on the cloud, the AI capabilities extend across business applications, Office 365, and the Power Platform. Here’s a quick look at the AI timeline across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.
One thing is for sure, the rest of 2023 is going to be fun!
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot is the world’s first AI Copilot that is natively built into CRM and ERP.
It brings the next generation of AI capabilities and natural language processing to every line of business – ranging from sales and marketing to service and supply chain.
Genie in a Bottle
Business professionals can now generate ideas and content with the help of AI. They can easily transfer mundane and time-consuming tasks and let AI do the work. The tool can also obtain deep insights in addition to suggestions on the next best actions. In short, a user can describe his needs, and the AI gets it done. A little bit like a genie in a bottle, your wish is the AI’s command.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CoPilot – A Generative AI Experience
Here, we leave you with a powerful example of generative AI already incorporated in Dynamics 365 Copilot. This will give you a preview of work in the future, created by Microsoft.
Viva Sales, one of Microsoft’s earlier AI functionality, can now generate content suggestions based on customer emails. Importantly, it can populate it with data that is directly relevant to the recipient of the email. This can include pricing, promotions, or upcoming deadlines.
The Viva Sales – Embracing AI Experience
How this works is that first and foremost, the seller gets to choose from a set of AI-suggested reply options. Next, he/she can make minor edits to the generated content to add any level of hyper-personalization. And that’s it, the user can quickly copy out the content to email and send them out.
Microsoft Viva Sales Generative AI Experience
Today, the same task is being done manually by a seller. At first, the user sifts through tons of data to find relevant details. Then comes the manual crafting of emails one by one, incorporating personalization. And finally, the user has to double-check the information going through the CRM record.
According to Microsoft Research, everyday sellers spent 66 percent of their time at work managing emails.
The impact of AI on just one task at work is disruptive. Then what would the whole future of work created by Microsoft look like?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot for Real Estate
Property-xRM, is a vertical solution for Real Estate built on Microsoft Dynamics 365. We are always exploring ways to make work easier for Real Estate Business professionals using the power of AI.
Be it managing the early interactions with your prospective tenants and owners, sharing proposals, scheduling site visits, or managing appointments – the possibilities with Artificial Intelligence are endless.
With the entire Microsoft ecosystem being powered by GPT and Generative AI capabilities, users can expect all the functionalities to be natively brought into Property-xRM.
To learn more about how Property-xRM leverages Microsoft Technology for Real Estate, feel free to get in touch.
Are you a homebuilder or a developer looking to scale your business with a comprehensive software solution to streamline the selling process? Is nurturing leads across channels, maintaining a central database of customers, reducing handover time, and boosting revenue important to you? Let’s look at what makes for the best CRM for Homebuilders and Developers.
Unlocking True Property Potential
Real Estate is a competitive and busy industry, and staying on top of it all can be a challenge. The secret often is how you interact with prospective home owners and how smooth their buying experience is. That’s where customer relationship management (CRM) software comes in. A real estate CRM can help streamline processes and unlock a property’s true potential.
CRM for Homebuilders helps create durable relationships with Residential owners
Sections:
1. What is a Real Estate Developer CRM?
2. Benefits of using a CRM for Homebuilders
3. How to select the best CRM for Homebuilders?
4. Tips for implementing a CRM for Homebuilders and Developers.
1. What is a Real Estate Developer CRM?
A Real Estate Developer CRM or CRM for Homebuilders is a software that helps in streamlining the home sales process. This includes tracking leads, monitoring units on a property, and clearly managing the different stages of a buyer. It helps one stay organized and efficient in managing the real estate business.
A Real Estate Developer CRM empowers companies to have a repository of clients, deals, and units (properties) in one place. It allows them to keep a record of clients’ contact details, the ongoing communications with them, their unit (property) preferences, agreement details, and much more. A CRM can also be useful in tracking the progress of deals, booking appointments or showings, and storing necessary documents related to the deals.
A CRM built for Homebuilders helps automate repetitive business processes, such as sending out emails, timely follow-up, setting reminders, and scheduling appointments. This saves your firm valuable time, that can be used to build durable relationships with your clients and closing more deals.
2. Benefits of Using a CRM for Homebuilders
Inventory Management
The inventory is arguably the most important aspect of a real estate business. It’s what ultimately is sold, leased, or maintained. Having a well-defined inventory structure is crucial as it provides easy accessibility and visibility to the users and the managers.
For instance, at any given point in time, it is important to have unit availability information, or to know which unit in which property is nearing a sale. This is made possible with a proper inventory management mechanism which allows a homebuilder or a developer to associate an owner (or lead) with a unit, the unit with a property, and the property with a portfolio as well.
Staying Organized
First and foremost, it helps you stay organized, as all your customer data, deals, and properties are in one place. This makes it easier to find the information you need quickly and efficiently. It essentially eliminates the need to ‘search for information’ which may otherwise be lost in spreadsheets, emails, or pieces of paper.
A good CRM also acts as a guide for sales representatives who, at a quick glance would know which stage in the process the buyer actually is.
Nurture Relationships
A property developer CRM also helps you nurture relationships with your clients. You can send automated emails and reminders, so your clients always know when their next appointment is or when their dream home is close to a reality.
At early stages of the buying journey, a CRM can also be used to track a client’s preferences and interests, so you can provide them with tailored recommendations on properties. This is made possible because the entire real estate inventory sits on the same CRM database, allowing real-time visibility.
Lead Management
Enquiries come in from multiple sources, it could be a phone call, a web submission, a social media link, a walk-in, an email, or any other source. A CRM helps you manage your leads from a variety of these different sources leveraging omni-channel management capabilities.
You can track the progress of each lead and prioritize them according to your criteria. This helps you focus on the leads that are most likely to convert, and literally eliminates the risk of leads falling through the crack.
CRM for Homebuilders – Must have features
When it comes to finding the best CRM for Homebuilders, there are several things you should look for.
A. It should have all the Necessary Features you need to manage functions that cater to your business. Not just the general market practices, but your own selling process. Being a front-end operational system, the tool should also be intuitive with a user-friendly interface, so you can find the information you need quickly and easily.
B. Needless to say, is the Reporting Capabilities. At the same time, a CRM should also have customized filtering capability, so you can segment your leads, opportunities, contracts, and units (properties) according to your criteria. A CRM must empower businesses get a graphical representation and a real-time view of their business performance. A Microsoft-based solution like Property-xRM leverages the native capabilities of PowerBI to generate custom reports and dashboards for any organization.
C. Another important criterion for the best Homebuilder CRM is the Integration Capabilities with third-party tools, such as Email Marketing tools, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and Accounting software. This will help you streamline your processes and save time.
D. Finally, it wouldn’t among the best, if it not accessible by its users on Mobile and Tablet devices. This makes so much sense for a Real Estate salesperson who mostly has to work on-the-go.
3. Find the Best Real Estate Developer CRM
Snapshot of Property-xRM’s CRM for Homebuilders and Developers with insight into customer journey
Finding the best Real Estate Developer CRM can be a challenge, as there are so many options available. The best way to find the right CRM for you is to do your research right. Focusing on the ‘right’ CRM is often more important than choosing the ‘best’ CRM since software is not a one-fit-for-all product. Often, the best CRMs are ones that guide and empower your salespeople, a tool that salespeople love to use and one that makes lives easier for them.
Start by defining what you want out of a CRM. What are the functions that you’re looking to streamline or automate? Once that is set, then comes the rest – the budget, the features, the scalability factor of the solution, and all the add-on functionalities.
There are many Real Estate CRM systems out there and it is not easy to find the right one. There are four main factors that you need to consider when looking for a Real Estate Developer CRM system:
a. Type of Real Estate firm
i. If your firm is a large-scale operator with hundreds and thousands of users, you may require a scalable solution with a strong platform that allows to consolidate all your processes. This also applies to developers and homebuilders that have operations in multiple countries or regions with complex processes in different regions. Property-xRM, over the years has catered to requirements of mega developers and homebuilders, helping them scale their business.
ii. If the number of users are less and the operations are small-to-mid size, one may opt for a proprietary solution that offers basic real-estate specific functionalities. It will not only save money, it will help get the work done.
b. Needs of your Real Estate business:
i. If your business has complex processes, then it might be worth investing in a global platform. Customization capabilities, ease in integrations, managing security roles, all become important factors to consider in such a scenario. Microsoft Dynamics 365 has proven to be a strong base platform with an entire ecosystem of applications under the single umbrella. This promotes efficiency and a single source of truth.
ii. If your business processes are simple and follows a set standard, then it might be better to go for an affordable option that caters to your requirements.
c. Software & User Considerations
Make sure that the software has the features you need to manage your business. There would be functionalities that are available ‘out-of-the-box’ (meaning they are ready-to-use), and functionalities that need to be custom-built. Always check if the basic functionalities required for your business are a tick!
And often, it’s the ‘people’ side of software implementations that get ignored. How easy is the software to adapt to? How flexible and intuitive is it? Making sure that the end users find the tool easy to adopt is critical. And needless to say, one must also consider the budget before making investment decisions.
d. Business Process Analysis
Remember we mentioned about defining requirements and processes clearly? That makes the hunt for a CRM solution much easier. Once you have narrowed down your needs, you should ideally start out with a Business Process Analysis (BPA) before adopting the CRM in one-go.
A BPA will give you a better sense of whether a CRM is the best fit for your needs. You should also make sure to ask the right questions and get the best support during this time whenever you need. Companies like Metadata Technologies bring with them over 20 years of CRM expertise and 100+ CRM audits, enabling companies succeed with their digital transformation goals.
4. Tips for Homebuilders implementing a CRM
Once you have chosen the best CRM for homebuilders and developers, it’s time to start implementing it. Here are some tips to help you get started:
A. Make sure you have an understanding of the CRM’s features and how it could benefit your organization.
B. Set up a training program for your team so they can get used to the new system and get their queries resolved.
C. Take a phased approach in the implementation and start with the features that are most important to you.
D. Define the standard processes and workflows. This will help in incorporating custom workflows in the future.
E. Take advantage of the CRM’s automation features to help front-end executives save time.
How to start using a Real Estate Developer CRM?
Using a Real Estate CRM is fairly straightforward. After you have set up the system, you can start using it to track leads, manage your buyer lifecycle, and monitor units on your properties. You can promote business automation by regulating emails and reminders, and use it to segment your leads and real estate portfolio according to your criteria.
To get the most out of a Real Estate Developer CRM, you should also use it to monitor your progress. You can track your KPIs like how many leads you have, how many deals you have closed, how much revenue you have earned, and so on. This will help you measure the success of your business and make improvements where needed with the help of automated reports generated by the CRM system.
CRM: An Essential Tool for Homebuilders
Using a CRM is essential for Homebuilders and developers in managing the business and unlocking property potential. The best Real Estate developer CRM should have all the features you need, be user-friendly, and integrate with other software. When implementing your CRM, make sure you have a good understanding of the features and set up processes and workflows to streamline your operations. With the right Real Estate Developer CRM, make the most out of your real estate business.
If you’re looking for the best CRM for Homebuilders and developers, get a free demo of Property-xRM today and see how it can help unlock your property potential.
Having good tenant relationships is important for any property management business, as it can not only improve the quality of life for tenants but also increase the profitability of the business. One way to do this is by providing a Resident Portal – an online communication platform providing tenants with tools and resources to improve their rental experience. In this article, we’ll discuss 6 ways you can use a Resident Portal to boost tenant retention and provide your customers with a better rental experience.
What is a Resident Portal?
A Resident Portal is an online platform that gives a resident 24*7 access to pay rent, submit a maintenance request, and keep updated about what is happening in and around his community. The ease of access increases tenant retention and overall tenant satisfaction.
Online portals that are included in the property management software, like Property-xRM is the most convenient form. You don’t have to take the hassle of multiple services and password information. The quality of data is also better as data duplication is avoided.
6 ways to Increase Tenant Retention Using a Resident Portal
1. Pay Rent Online with ease
One of the most significant benefits of an online portal is the ability it gives residents to pay rent payments online, this removes the hassle of handling checks and envelopes.
Property management companies can save a lot of time and energy by circumventing these manual processes. An added advantage is that all payment records are organized and easily accessible by both tenants and owners increasing transparency and trust.
2.Submit Maintenance Requests at any time
Tenants can submit maintenance requests at any time, this makes them feel more valued. So if they have a leaking tap or their air conditioner broke down, they can log in to the tenant portal and register their grievance. A tenant can give a short brief of the situation and add photos, so it provides the maintenance team with more information from the get-go, making the maintenance process faster and more efficient.
When tenants see that their maintenance requests are dealt with swiftly, you increase tenant satisfaction and in turn, increase tenant retention.
“Acquiring a new customer can be five to twenty five times costlier than keeping an existing one”
Resident portals help in streamlining maintenance activities. The number of incoming calls is reduced as maintenance activities not belonging to an urgent category are registered using the customer portal. The ease of access to see account details and other valuable information like lease status and payments made means that residents won’t have to call up the office that often.
4. Stay in touch with your Rental Community
Online portals help to foster a sense of community among the residents. It provides a shared forum where the residents can communicate and connect with their neighbors, staying on top of all the events and happenings in the community.
According to the Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer can be five to twenty-five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Tenants who are happier will stay longer and be interested to buy new properties from the builder. A win-win for both parties!
5. Lease Renewals made easy
Lease renewals are simplified and made easier with a resident portal in place. By getting a clear view of his/her leases, the residents can apply for an extension or submit for renewals with a few simple clicks.
Manual renewal of leasing contracts is a time taking process. A tenant portal can save up to 500 hours of labor a year for a single leasing agent. The advent of e-signatures also had a big role to play as they are now accepted in the major industrialized nations in the world and in the USA. With the E-sign Act giving it the same status as hand-written signatures, digital signatures don’t get more official.
6. Self-Servicing Capabilities
In today’s convenience-driven world, faster resolutions are often the key to higher customer satisfaction. Resident Portals promote self-servicing capabilities by leveraging the power of AI and Chat Bots. By leveraging the customer database, chatbots can provide quick responses to FAQs like rent payment due date, maintenance request status, rent amount due, etc. These instant responses often leave an impression on the residents who feel valued and satisfied at the same time.
Property-xRM is a CRM-based Property Management software powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365. The Resident Portal offered along with Property-xRM has observed an increase in customer satisfaction by 45%. Explore the capabilities of Property-xRM for your organization today.
Ellington Properties, an award-winning design-led boutique developer, selects Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Property-xRM to upgrade its systems and technology. This partnership with Microsoft and Metadata Technologies will enhance support for Ellington’s customers and further enable the company’s growth.
Over the years, Ellington has built its reputation for developing beautifully designed homes with impeccable architecture and incredible artistry. So it comes as no surprise, that a customer-oriented developer has invested in the world-class Microsoft-based Real Estate CRM solution, Property-xRM.
This digital initiative will provide impetus to Ellington’s aim of automating its operations with a heavier focus on managing relationships with its stakeholders.
Nitin Bhatnagar, Co-Founder, and President of Ellington Properties, said: “We have made phenomenal progress in recent years, increasing the number of launches and handovers of projects. Our digital transformation is the next step in accelerating our growth and enhancing the level of service we provide to our customers.”
Ellington Properties will implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE (CRM) and Property-xRM with the support of Metadata Technologies, a Gold Microsoft Partner. This initiative will boost Ellington’s sales and service features with improved customer-centricity. The property management solution provides complete automation, minimising manual processes and human interference thereby ensuring faster processes and enhanced service for customers.
Yvonne Chebib, Global Partner Solutions Lead, Microsoft UAE, said: “Our comprehensive solution, backed by the secure and versatile Microsoft Cloud, is specifically designed for the real estate industry. We are delighted to be working with Ellington Properties, supporting their needs to achieve faster growth and increased customer satisfaction.”
The avant-garde Real Estate Developer’s decision to integrate a customer-focused approach into their routine functions reflects their long-standing commitment to their customers.
Rasheed Muhammed, Managing Director, Metadata Technologies added: “We are excited about working with Ellington Properties, to enhance their customer-centric strategy and digital transformation. A Microsoft award-winning solution like Property-xRM will streamline the processes, boost productivity, provide better business insights, and hence help in achieving higher growth rates.”
The maturity of Property-xRM helps to cater to all the major revenue-generating aspects of a real estate company’s operations. As Gold Microsoft Partners, Metadata Technologies, a CRM company has been providing solutions to large Real Estate Developers and Property Management companies for over 20 years.
