Increasing conversion by CRM implementation for a real estate company

‍„Basically, I was surprised with the help of freelancers, because our project was pretty unusual and full of unexpected situations. Freelancers tried to to everything they could to help us adapt and prepare software for our needs.”

‍Igor Bielawski, the Client

This project was to implement a CRM system for a real estate company. The company is called Place4you, and they help clients sell and buy flats. They offer services including market and price analysis, offers preparation, marketing, and negotiations. The Pipedrive system was introduced to help them organize sales processes, standardize the customer base and streamline their work. The company counts around 40 employees.

I am a data analyst with a programming background. I implemented several reporting automation solutions in the shared service of one of the biggest banks. I can help you with the integration of your CRM with other software.

Kamil Hudaszek, SoftwareSupp Freelancer

Real estate CRM - project aimed to improve customer service and increase conversion

System customization is theoretically a permanent element of every project involving the implementation of a CRM system. However, depending on the industry and the specificity of the company, the requirements are very different. According to the research conducted based on cooperation between LeadResponseManagement.org and Indsiedesales.com, the consistency of the response speed with the increase in conversion has been confirmed.

If you respond within 5 minutes, you are 21x more likely to convert a lead into an opportunity to sell.

The main problem for the client was the conversion. Many clients were left out after filling the contact form. It was the result of underdeveloped business processes and the lack of a unified system for different departments. One of the problems arose due to communication obstacles between the call center and the salespeople. The lack of automation meant that a significant part of leads was not kept and turned into customers. It was due to the fact that after the lead's initial conversation with the call center, the person taking care of the lead was not assigned. In a situation where the seller was not involved, the leads were lost. This caused difficulties with the conversion results. Additionally, among the people working in the call department, a significant decrease in motivation was observed because of no noticeable work results. Thanks to the introduction of Pipedrive in the company, people from the call department got an accurate picture of who the lead was assigned to and at what stage it is - it influenced the increase in conversion in both the sales and call teams.

Mr. Igor, from Place4you, was satisfied with the received product and the effects of cooperation with SoftwareSupp's Freelancers. Mr. Igor directly cooperated with our experts in determining the scope of the project and supervised the work. He emphasized the quality of communication and the approach to work that nothing is impossible.

Real estate CRM - project’s scope

In this project, we implemented the CRM system from scratch. We adjusted the individual elements of the system so that the implemented software met all customer specifications. The project was completed in less time than expected. The implementation of the tasks set at the beginning took less than 27 hours. The remaining hours can be used for additional support in refining the system for new requirements.

• Business process analysis,
• Implementation and configuration of Pipedrive CRM,
• Creating separate sales funnels (seller/buyer)
• Creation of a dedicated application on Azure,
• Designing Pipedrive forms automation,
• Integration with lead sources,
• Integration with GSuite,
• Integration with Caller.

Freelancers hired for this project

Due to the specificity of the project and customer requirements, two experts participated in this project. They complemented each other in terms of skills. The combination of these two experts made it possible to provide the highest quality service.

Kamil managed communication with the client. He supervised the flow of information. Kamil was responsible for the analysis of business processes and advising on specific optimizations to increase the performance of the new application. He also created analytical dashboards. Kamil was also an architect of integration with the website. On the other hand, Sebastian's main task was to code the application on Azure

Experts' main tasks:

• Analysis of current systems and processes
• Understanding the problems and needs of the client
• Advising on the appearance and functioning of Dashboards
• Suggesting changes to the business process
• Personalization - custom fields for deals, products, people, and leads labels
• Custom fields - determining the structure of data entered into CRM and filtering
• Email automation
• Analysis and forecasting inside Pipedrive
• Team training

Real estate CRM Implementation

We focused on configuring Pipedrive to meet the requirements of all departments. The scope of the project changed throughout the work. After starting the work, the client resigned from many elements that initially seemed useful to him. We helped the client not only in the technical field but also in business. Some existing processes could be significantly simplified and modified to increase the efficiency of employees' work. Together, with Place4you employees, we have introduced many changes.

According to CSO Insights, only 33% of sales representatives' working time is spent on active sales.

Thanks to the automation of manual tasks and ordering of sales processes, the company wanted to maximize the potential of its sellers. Automation affects not only the speed of work but also the quality. Activities are planned and pre-designed. The implementation of the CRM system makes it possible to achieve consistency with the activities of individual employees from different departments and standardize the messages sent.

At SoftwareSupp, we are aware that sometimes some changes may appear on the assumed plans and projects. When establishing the project, the scope of the project and the tasks of the expert are determined. However, it does not mean that they cannot be modified. Oftentimes, after consulting with a specialist, the client decides to reduce or increase the scope of work. During the work, the expert marks in the project board the task's status and the time allocated to its execution. It means that in the event of a reduction in the number of duties or their change, funds may remain in the customer's account for later use. In such situations, customers use the remaining budget for support, team training, or additional implementation. We believe that the transparent display of budget information leads to better fund management of the project. The project board allows the client to check the budget anytime he needs it.

The primary assumption of the project was to increase the conversion rate.

The company struggled with the problem of unstructured work. Because of no single source of information on specific clients, some of them were inadvertently ignored and lost. The CRM system was implemented precisely to collect all current details and arrange them by assigning a customer or project to individual representatives from the sales department. The client indicated that due to the lack of CRM, they are losing customers, which results in losing money.

A conversion is the performance of the desired activity by a potential customer. It is about interacting with a website or business. The action that counts as the conversion is the purchase or order of services. Various factors have an impact on the increase in conversion. It depends on the industry. The most common ones include the efficient work of the company's employees or a well-designed website that intuitively guides the client to perform a specific activity.

Another difficulty was the ineffective flow of information between the internal call center department and salespeople. For this purpose, Pipedrive has been properly configured so that the leads from the call center are directly assigned to the salesperson. By specifying the settings, now the manager can browse every transaction and thus is able to control all sales processes. It has a positive impact on the increase in conversions in the company, the quality of customer service, and the effectiveness of the activities of call center employees. People working in the Call department received access to the database of the leads. It increased their involvement and improved the results of the work.

Experts designed a deal creation automation path. The form visible on the website has been linked to the appropriate section in Pipedrive. As a result, all customer's data is stored in one place and properly prioritized.

Each SaaS implementation will differ from one another. Customers have different requirements depending on the industry and other business factors. The element distinguishing this project was integration with distinct lead sources and business process consulting. Usually, experts advise only on the usage of the application itself, its functions, or assigning specific fields. During this implementation, we helped the client determine the stages of handling leads.

The client received a personalized tool that will improve the work of the company and increase conversions. Although there is no suitable ready-made software available, an entirely new system has been built for the needs of the project. The introduced automation shortened the handling of individual processes in the company. To create it, it was necessary to design a suitable environment first to enable good performance.

The real estate industry, like any other, has various characteristic elements. In this case, the company cooperates with sellers and buyers, and it has a specific list of portals that it works on. The effort in this area was to create automated emails for particular platforms. Place4you publishes its clients' offers on 25 portals. Templates have been created for each of the supported services, such as OtoDom, etc. It was built based on the analysis of each of the websites' requirements.

At the software testing stage, Place4you employees are satisfied with the operation of the system. Some of them have already seen an increase in individual conversion results.

Pipedrive automations

When the leads pass between the various stages of the funnels, tasks are automatically created with a predefined deadline for completion. As a result, sellers can easily stay in constant communication with customers. In the real estate industry, regular contact is significant. It helps to build trust and effective sales results. The system guides the seller through the sales stages, reminding you about specific steps. The introduced automation is of particular importance for new employees because it enables them to achieve their first successes at the beginning of their work in the company. It has a positive impact on the employee retention rate in the company.

Additional Real estate CRM integrations

In this project, Pipedrive has been integrated with a dedicated application on Azure. Using the C Sharp (C #) language, we used the Microsoft Azure environment to create an application that allowed the client to automatically generate leads in Pipedrive based on emails coming from real estate services after the user completes the website's contact form. Integration with e-mails was the most time-consuming. It consisted in linking the form on the website with Gmail. The integration was carried out for 39 users. During the project implementation, we conducted training courses for employees. The training sessions were mainly focused on explaining the use of Pipedrive and applications on Azure. Among the additional project components, we can also distinguish integration with Pipedrive Caller. In this case, we recommended using the mobile app. As a result, the convenience of customer service among employees has been increased.

Sales funnels

The client wished to build four sales funnels. As a real estate agency, they are an advisor for the seller or the buyer, depending on the situation. Whereby first and second funnels presented the process of selling and cooperating with the seller and buyer of the property. The third funnel, on the other hand, concerned the call center. It described the sequence of steps taken from the initial contact via call center to transfer to the seller. The fourth was a description of the process of servicing fo leads from outside sources. Sales funnels show the automation of tasks assigned to a specific sales stage. In the real estate industry, the company must be prepared to operate with the client who wants to buy and the one who wants to sell the property. Depending on the source of customers, the seller's tasks differ. The general process for selling a property through an estate agency is outlined below. A well-prepared sales funnel should contain specific, key, and detailed information about the activities to be carried out. In the prepared sales funnels for Place4you, there are, among others, reminders about sending a specific SMS, documents that must be collected at a given stage of sales, information listed that have to be provided to the customer at every level of cooperation.

Integration with lead sources as a part of real estate CRM implementation

Pipedrive Insights has been activated. It allows the creation of reports and analyzes. It is a very useful tool, which enables to observe the effects of work and create personalized summaries of projects. Connecting with lead sources allows verifying those that bring the best results. What's more, gathering knowledge about where individual clients contact us from empowers us to plan future activities in detail. Lead sources have been properly grouped. The company now has a clear picture of where customers come from and can effectively measure sales results. After tool implementation, Place4You knows which leads appeared after visiting the website or calling the telemarketing department and which came from outside sources.

Thanks to our experience and good relationship with the client, we were able to work out their new business process together.

SoftwareSupp Freelancers used their extensive knowledge to advise the client on the best solutions for him, ideally using the possibilities offered by the CRM system. The refinement and customization of the software enable the maximization of effectiveness in this area. Here you can find another article regarding improving sales results by CRM implementation.

Kamil, a hired expert, became a part of a Place4you team. Thanks to his experience, knowledge and entanglement, he helped the client redefine business processes. In addition to the well-prepared system, the client also received analytical support. The client added co-workers to the product who had an impact on the course of the project and participated in training courses conducted by CRM specialists. Project management in companies is often influenced by even a few people from different departments. By adding employees, you have a better chance to achieve a decent effect in a shorter time by transparent communication.