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Buying a house is a life-changing experience. For many, it’s something they may do only once in their life.
When it comes to such a huge step, buyers expect the best possible service with a lot of personal attention. They want their realtors to be easily accessible, responsive, and trustworthy. Because when you’re about to spend a ton of money on a house, the last thing you want to do is wait days to get a reply to an email or a phone call.
That’s why forward-thinking realtors have started to use instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp Business. Offering service via WhatsApp enables them to offer fast, efficient, and personal communication via the app their customers use to talk to friends and family. How much more personal can you get?
In this article, we’ll discuss how to use WhatsApp Business for real estate services.
Why WhatsApp Business is a great fit for the real estate industry
There are more instant messaging apps than you can count on two hands. But WhatsApp Business is by far the most interesting one for realtors. Here’s a list of reasons why:
- WhatsApp Business is the most popular messaging app in the world.
- The app was built for informal, fast, and personal interaction.
- You can quickly send multimedia files from your phone and desktop.
And that’s only when you use the WhatsApp Business app, which was created for smaller businesses. Once you start using the WhatsApp Business API — which was developed for larger businesses — you level up the entire customer journey.
Here’s what you can do with the API, that you cannot do with the regular WhatsApp Business app:
- Manage WhatsApp Business with more than four users.
- Connect all your communication channels — including WhatsApp, email, phone, Facebook, etc. — to one team inbox. Keeping all conversations and important documents in one centralized platform.
- Automatically send WhatsApp updates (i.e. “Don’t forget about tomorrow’s house viewing at 1 pm!”).
- Automatically respond to messages from customers with auto-replies or no-code chatbots.
- Get in-depth insights into customer behavior and realtor performance.
- Get guaranteed data protection (which is not the case via the WhatsApp Business API).
Once you’re set up with the WhatsApp Business API, there are countless ways to upgrade your customer’s journey.
6 steps to enrich the customer journey with WhatsApp
Send “new property alerts” to prospects
To get buzz around a property that is about to go on sale going, realtors often post on social media. But if you have a number of prospects that you know are looking for a home, imagine the thrill you can create by sending them updates via WhatsApp.
That group will know they are amongst a select few who know about this opportunity, and that they will need to act quickly to be the first to place an offer. It’s a surefire method to create some healthy FOMO amongst your prospects.
Offer fast and personal communication
WhatsApp is a medium that supports fast, personal, and often informal conversations. It’s an accessible channel for customers to ask questions freely. Emails take more time to write and often get replied to slowly. Making a phone call is much easier, but can become a little bit intrusive if you do it multiple times a week.
A question like “Hi Bob, should I send the requested documents as a PDF or another format?” is perfect for WhatsApp. And those are exactly the questions — simple as they may be — that come up a lot. Customers can also send those documents via WhatsApp for a quick check from the realtor.
Note: if you’re interested in sending documents, make sure to use the WhatsApp Business API. The WhatsApp Business app does not offer guaranteed data protection.
Enable sign-ups for house viewings via WhatsApp
Once you’ve got people hyped up about the new property that’s about to go on sale, it’s time to get sign-ups for viewings. There are multiple ways people realtors usually organize this:
- Via an online form
- Via phone
- Via an email
But WhatsApp beats all of those solutions. It enables your prospects to do things:
- Sign up via the app they use most
- Ask questions (would you mind if I show up 15 minutes earlier?)
As a realtor, you can collect sign-ups and answer questions whenever you have time. When people sign up via phone, you’re pretty much forced to answer instantly. On the other hand, when people sign up via a form, they usually can’t ask questions.
WhatsApp offers the best of both worlds.
Send updates throughout the journey
During the process of buying a house, there are a lot of milestones. Some are small, some are big. When a realtor actively acknowledges this and updates you, it will look like they are on top of their work. And that’s what you want.
Sending an email for every little milestone and update can be a bit overkill and come off spammy. Picking up the phone to call the buyer for everything is simply inefficient for both parties.
But sending updates via WhatsApp is the ultimate middle ground.
Here are a couple of standard updates realtors can send to buyers in every single process:
- A message after signing up for a viewing
- An informative message after a viewing
- A congratulatory message after selling the house
When you send these updates via WhatsApp, it comes off as personal and thoughtful. All it takes is a little bit of extra effort from the realtor to get a huge boost in customer happiness.
Automate repetitive workflows
If you’re busy, a little bit of automation can help relieve some pressure. When using the WhatsApp Business API, you can use quick replies, auto-replies, rules, and even WhatsApp chatbots to help you with the workload.
Human connection should always be prioritized. Nobody wants to feel like they are talking to a robot, especially when buying a house. But there are cases in which some automation is beneficial for both parties:
- When a customer needs basic information outside of business hours
- When a customer has a simple FAQ that can be answered by a bot
- When a customer wants to sign up for a viewing or book an appointment
These are things that bots can handle much faster and more efficiently than a human ever could. And both the customer and the realtor benefit from it.
Want to use WhatsApp Business for selling houses? Here’s what to do
You can simply use the WhatsApp Business app, but it comes with some limitations:
- Limited automation options
- Maximum number of users
- No in-depth statistics
- No guaranteed data protection
Especially data protection is key when dealing with sensitive information and sending over documents.
With Trengo, you can get started with the WhatsApp Business API in less than 10 seconds. You can connect your WhatsApp, email, phone, Facebook, Instagram, and any other customer communication channel to one inbox. This gives you the ability to manage all your conversations in a single view.
