PropTech Today - Why investing in the right PropTech is like having an extra pair of hands - or two…

Have you heard of the Pareto Principle…? Named after economist Vilfredo Pareto, it describes the imbalance of most work-related events - explaining that around 80% of the output from a given situation is produced by just 20% of the input.

An industry expert related this principle back to the estate agency industry in a Forbes article, quoting: “the average agent spends 80% of their business day doing admin and marketing their product, not negotiating and closing deals”.

Having worked with hundreds of estate agents up and down the country, I know this statement will likely ring true with the majority reading it. The amount of calls, emails, enquiries and tasks agents have to complete in any one day is staggering - but it feels wrong that so much of an agent’s day is spent doing the busywork.

In the same article, the expert goes on to comment that: “technology allows us to invert that statistic so that 80% of a professional’s time is spent negotiating and closing deals, and only 20% is spent on administrative tasks.”

Now more than ever, it’s vital that agents are using their time wisely, and those who refuse to prioritise technology investment could find themselves failing to prioritise their workload in the most efficient way.

Investing in the right technology, and using it to its full potential, can have the same direct impact as hiring another team member (or several) - without the payroll. The right tech can handle all of those extremely time-consuming tasks that take up so much business resource.

Gain your own in-house data analyst and researcher.

Whether it’s market activity, property particulars or off-market research, data is crucial to every aspect of your business. It’s vital to have access to accurate and reliable information, and there is software available that provides all the data you need on demand to simplify your processes behind the scenes.

Property report tools, for example, can help agents gain valuable insights into a range of data points that may be of interest to prospective clients, such as estimated house value, flood risk and more. The rise of technologies like this allows agents to forgo extensive research and, instead, pull together comprehensive reports, all with the click of a button.

But the power of data doesn’t stop there. With the rise in AI technology, data is becoming even more powerful, being further enhanced by accurate predictive analysis. While this has endless potential use cases, one area where this is having the most impact is in marketing.

By identifying a property’s propensity to sell, agents can effectively increase their returns from direct mail prospecting - while cutting countless hours from trying to manually refine their targeting. With these tools, users can utilise data to gain a deeper understanding of homeowners in their area and instantly identify properties that are most likely to instruct.

Gain your own marketing team… copywriters included.

Prospecting is vital to every agency’s business generation strategy - cutting off your marketing is like cutting off your business’ blood supply. But it’s no secret that it can take up a great deal of time and effort, especially when done manually.

Just like a marketeer, the right prospecting tool (and the data powering it) can help you create and implement highly-targeted direct mail campaigns.

For example, letter writing. It used to be a tiresome and laborious task, but thanks to the latest innovations we’ve seen in AI, agents can now craft comprehensive and persuasive prospecting letters in just seconds - and easily refresh their campaigns whenever they like!

Prospecting tools like Spectre have this functionality embedded into their platform, allowing agents to input their preferred tone of voice and a few key agency USPs that they want to include in a letter. This is then generated in seconds, saving you hours of time without compromising on quality.

Some prospecting tools even allow you to automate the send of your entire marketing campaign - helping you win instructions effortlessly. All of this is helping agents save hours per month and allowing them to refocus their priorities on adding value to their clients.

Gain an additional administrator that works 24/7.

If we take the example of booking a viewing, this one task typically results in a list of admin tasks for the agent. On average, arranging a viewing involves making four phone calls and sending one email for the agent… and this typically happens multiple times a day across multiple people.

Instead, applicants can now book into your diary online (during pre-approved time slots) - triggering automated communication regarding appointment requests and confirmations to all the relevant parties and removing countless admin jobs from the agent’s plate.

Technology in this space is far superior to what it once was. Online booking tools today keep agents in full control by enabling them to pre-set their own qualification criteria - as well as taking into account existing appointments, travel times and local traffic conditions, amongst numerous other factors. This all helps to ensure the most optimised and efficient calendars.

Automating the process of arranging and communicating viewings might not feel like a big win, but it can actually have a big impact on time saving. For instance, if you spend two minutes on each phone call and two minutes writing an email, that’s around ten minutes of manual work for every viewing. Then, let’s say you’re booking 50 viewings a week, you’re losing an entire day a week (8 hours) just on admin - which could all be handled by smart technology!

If 2023 has shown us anything so far, it’s that technology is developing so quickly and ways of working are being reimagined across all industries… estate agency included. From increasing business costs to the rise of AI, it’s vital that estate agents react to these changes in every way possible and implement more efficient processes.

Finding and investing in tech is, quite literally, like having an extra pair of hands in your team… and the right investment won’t just save hours of valuable time, it will future-proof your agency, making it easier to adapt and evolve alongside the changes in the industry.