FormKeep EduLog #5: FormKeep and Real Estate: Best Buds

A case study on how a real estate broker can use web forms

Welcome Back!

Over the past four weeks we’ve built up your web form infrastructure. From protecting it against spam and integrating your G Suite account to running your own email campaign, you’ve become a FormKeep pro. Indeed, our fictional small business, the San Jose Veterinary Group, has upped their online presence and customer engagement skills by an order of magnitude.
But this week, we’re taking a break to focus on something new: A case study. Online customer engagement is incredibly useful for a multitude of businesses, especially those outside of the obvious verticals like SaaS or journalism. Nearly every SME can make use of a service like FormKeep somehow, and the one I chose to study this week is the business of real estate brokerage.

The Business

To learn a little bit more about the subject of this EduLog, I spoke with a number of brokers, all working in the US Northeast, especially in New York State about their roles and industry. I also outlined FormKeep’s capabilities and asked if they saw it as a value-add. Their responses? An enthusiastic yes! 

So what is it that they do? Well, the bread and butter of a real estate broker is bringing two parties together to negotiate the transfer of property. It’s all about coordination and relationship management. You’ve got to be personable, prompt, and most especially, an expert at juggling often warring personalities and unaligned interests. 

So, it seems simple at the top, but it can get as complex as you want it to be. After all, there’s a reason Selling Sunset is so popular. 

However, the industry is ripe for modernization.

The Problem

Sure, most major brokerages have been using CRM software like Salesforce for the past few years, but that should be the bare minimum. Since brokers are dealing directly with clients, who are often trusting them to shepherd the largest purchase of their lives, they want to feel respected. They want their time to feel valued and they want to be their broker’s #1 priority. Unfortunately for both parties, that broker is often handling multiple deals at once and must commit a large portion of their day to what turns into a juggling act. 

Additionally, brokers spend 30-40% of their working days devoted to lead generation, and something like a CRM can only manage an existing customer, not prospect new ones. So, brokers have turned to platforms like Instagram to advertise new listings, but when someone clicks on one, they’re just taken to some pretty pictures and a phone number. As I’ve said before, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get people to dial a number, and hit rates drastically fall because of this. 

Enter: FormKeep web forms.

The Solution

Web forms are not a miracle tonic, but at times they can be ridiculously useful. As such, both of these problems can be remedied by FormKeep’s software. 

Nowadays, sometimes people are hesitant to hop on the phone. Instead they are looking for a simple electronic way to communicate. Prepping for a new listing? Send a link to a webform to gather some pre-meeting background. Trying to schedule an open house? Send a web form to identify good weekends. Trying to capture names from people browsing an online listing? Link to a web contact us form. 

There are dozens of cases like this, and using web forms is a win for both the broker and the client. They send and receive the information they want, when they want, quickly, reliably, and cheaply. 

When it comes to broker lead generation, FormKeep fills the “post-bite” hole very easily. You lose a potential buyer in seconds when they’re dissuaded by a phone number. So instead, use a web form to get their basic information, populate the rest from their Facebook account, and pipe it directly into your Salesforce CRM!

For a real world example, see something like this on Sotheby’s website...

Real-Estate-Web-Form Enlightenment

There are plenty of holes waiting to be filled in every business, and while web forms are not suited to every problem, if your business isn’t using them, then you almost definitely should be. Even the Royal Flying Doctor Service uses web forms!

FormKeep offers one of the easiest, cheapest, and most robust ways of communicating with both your customers and your stakeholders. Its web forms are relevant for real estate professionals, veterinarians, SasS companies, and pretty much anything else you can think of. And so I hope you have found this EduLog Case Study enlightening. Take some time to examine your own business model and identify which holes FormKeep can help your repair. 

Join us next week for another case study! This time we'll be focused on school administrators.