4 Cloud Application Benefits for Busy Real Estate Agents

You're a busy real estate agent. You've just finished showing one apartment and you're heading back to the office when your mobile phone rings. A customer has a question about her lease agreement. You can't access the document until you get back to the office, so you promise to circle back ASAP.

Suddenly, your office calls and reroutes you for a last-minute showing at one of your listings. You need to call the current residents and give them a heads-up. Unfortunately, you don't have their contact information saved in your mobile phone through cloud applications and can't find it in your email. So, you have to call the office and ask someone to look it up in your CRM system.

As you're leaving that appointment, you receive a call from another customer, who immediately starts to explain what he wants in an apartment. You scramble for a pen, but even though you started the day with 10 of them, they've all mysteriously vanished. You interrupt the customer and ask if you can call him back when you get to the office, but he's on a short break at work and won't be available then. He seems understanding and promises to try you later, but you're pretty sure he'll call another agent instead.

You field a few more calls and show a couple more apartments. By the time you get back to your desk, you have a laundry list of things to look up and calls to return. It doesn't have to be this way, though. With cloud applications, agents can take the office technology and communications systems with them wherever they go. There's no need to follow up on dozens of calls every day, because the answers they need are always at their fingertips.

The cloud unifies and streamlines business communications for real estate agencies by providing a wide array of benefits, including the following:

1. 24/7 Access to Important Documents

When files are stored on an office desktop or a local business server, agents need to be sitting down in front of a computer to pull up important documents. They won't have many opportunities for that during the busy apartment hunting season.

However, with cloud applications for file storage, they can view, edit, and share documents from their smartphones. When a high-maintenance customer calls to add a few more bullet points to her apartment wish list, an agent can easily update the document on the fly.

2. Improved Team Collaboration

Speaking of updating documents on the fly, cloud services ensure document control, so when agents collaborate to help a particular customer, everyone can quickly locate the most up-to-date information. Agencies with unified communications technology in place have even more ways to collaborate, from sharing information to forwarding calls to video chatting while they're in the field.

3. A Professional Phone Presence

What looks more professional on a customer's caller ID, a name and mobile number, or a company name and office number? With a cloud-based business phone system, each agent's mobile phone connects with the office phone network, so outgoing calls register the same way on caller ID, whether agents call from their desk phones or smartphones. Agents can also receive calls on either device and can easily forward calls to colleagues.

With unified communications systems that also include call recording, agents can capture conversations when they're out and about, then listen to the audio files later when they can take notes. So, even when the pens go missing, information is preserved.

4. Seamless CRM Integrations

Real estate agencies with cloud CRM platforms can already access those applications from any device, but by integrating CRM with other cloud applications, all the information agents need about customers is stored in one place. For instance, when CRM and business phone systems are integrated, all customer interactions are automatically logged in the CRM platform, including any call recordings.

Apartment hunting season is a crazy time of year, but cloud applications can add a little sanity and a lot of efficiency to the mix.

Do you want to learn more about how agents can better communicate with clients and collaborate with colleagues? Check out other real estate solutions from Vonage Business.