SYNCRO helps real estate offices move and shake during the Global Pandemic with ‘Agent on Duty’ software.

There couldn’t be a better time to take a good hard look at your online marketing strategy, since the introduction of Covid-19 into our society .  The way we interact from this point in time forward has forever changed. That is without question. The things that we did before Covid to market real estate properties require a thoughtful, new approach.  

Real estate agents and brokers still need to list and sell properties. Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic however, they are now faced with additional challenges to solve.  It is our belief that SYNCRO can help to bring back some normalcy. Simply by adding a technology twist to traditional real estate tools. Especially related to lead funneling through an Agent on Duty style roster.

Real estate offices, like many other brick and mortar spaces, have become veritable ghost towns. Cautious agents are heeding government stay at home requests, leaving brokers to navigate this new normal with a skeleton crew.  

In days past, the real estate office was a happening place. Multiple easygoing front desk staff were on hand to greet you with friendly smiles as you entered. They would grab you a coffee while you waited for your meeting. You could sit and read a magazine as flurried groups of buyers, sellers and agents breezed through the common spaces to tightly packed meeting rooms. Agents lingered at each other’s desks, outside offices and chatted around the proverbial water cooler.  Of course, who can forget the monthly sales meetings, staff breakfasts and working lunches that routinely took place in these busy spaces. Guest speakers were flown in, conferences were planned, life was good and always busy around the real estate office.

Bring back the hustle, while keeping away all the extra bustle.

Brokers are now navigating a totally new routine. Gone is the hustle and bustle that once personified the old adage of moving and shaking. Buyers, sellers and agents are now met with warning signs pasted thick on entry doors. Hand sanitizer stations and Plexiglas is what greets you if you dare to enter.  Behind the Plexiglas, you’ll be lucky to find even one weary staff member. Rather than a boisterous greeting they will likely be very nervously applying their hand sanitizer for the 100th time that hour. Who can blame them?  After all, the threat of contracting the virus is real. Since no one can predict how it will affect each individual’s health, it’s fair to say some folks are rightfully concerned about contracting this complicated bug. 

As such, the real estate office, like so many other professional spaces, has become a place you only visit if absolutely imperative. Meetings have gone virtual with Zoom. Open houses have been substituted for online virtual tours.  Potential showings are scrutinized. Sellers ensure that you’re not only qualified but healthy ahead of time. Once there –  it’s masks, hand sanitizer and a laundry list of showing rules. Rules such as, leave all your doors open if you’re a seller and bring a mask if you’re a potential buyer are commonplace today.

Purpose built software so your Agent on Duty becomes an uber efficient lead machine.

It’s a given that people will still need to move.  Early statistics are telling us that even during a global Pandemic, people buy and sell real estate. The question is, how do we effectively connect and communicate to facilitate these potentially risky moves in today’s hyper cautious world? When everyone isn’t able to gather safely in one place? For now, the only answer lies in good technology. 

Technology can connect us. It’s no substitute for a genuine smile or face to face conversation. But if there was ever a time to admit that everyone really is looking online for real estate, that time is now. Potential buyers are no longer flippantly walking into brokerages to seek out the Agent on Duty. This is a good sign that we need to turn to new technology in order to adapt to the change. Preferably technology which will assist people in performing basic communication methods effectively.  Which is why we’re dusting off the features of the SYNCRO Agent on Duty texting software for live chat. 

Everyone knows that SYNCRO was bred to serve the real estate industry.  That’s why it’s no surprise that this complex and highly customized real estate feature which incorporates texting into your Agent on Duty software features, exists only in SYNCRO’s unique technology. 

Using live chat on your website is the equivalent of that busy real estate office some of us are yearning to have back. We can have real, live, one on one conversations with anyone who stops by the brokerage or agent’s website using SYNCRO. No social distancing required to break the ice with a new client and no mask necessary. You can conveniently pitch your office listings at any time of day, from wherever your stay at home location happens to be.  By using your own basic texting service from your mobile phone you can act as if you’re still at your desk. 

It’s like a physical Agent on Duty – only improved with texting.

It’s purpose driven technology like SYNCRO that makes it easier to keep some semblance of moving and shaking possible in today’s world of commerce. Adding in functional layers like the Agent on Duty software make it easier to do business the way you used to but with greater efficiency. Traditionally, the Agent on Duty was just one person who volunteered their time to assist any unannounced walk in traffic.  

On the off chance that someone came through the doors, the Agent on Duty would be of service. If multiple people came through on that one day however,  it would be difficult for that person to serve all people at once.  Not to mention the odds of that ever happening were rare. In fact most brokerages will attest that the Agent on Duty board was collecting dust even during pre-Covid times. 

SYNCRO’s Agent on Duty software tool changes all of that.  

Our virtual Agent on Duty texting tool is inexpensive. It only costs $5 per active real estate agent to add. Yet the return on investment is phenomenal.  This is simply because most brokerage websites will generate more “traffic” than their brick and mortar office – especially during a Pandemic.  Communicative agent’s are now center stage on the virtual front lines. Your website can now be used to greet and converse with hundreds, if not thousands of potential buyers and sellers – daily. All from one place and all directed conveniently to their cell phone via a very simple scheduling system. 

Tools like SYNCRO may cause some brokerages and offices to never look back at how things used to be.  Especially when they start seeing improved customer service translate to more sales, happier agents and bigger bottom lines. 

The future is forward and tools that utilize text messaging help to propel us there.

The Agent on Duty tool works in conjunction with our back end scheduler. It looks like any other online calendar system, so it’s familiar for anyone to use. It allows the administrator to drag and drop an agent’s name into any day of the week.  Then the administrator can set the hours that agent is available to chat.  It’s just that simple. All chats from the website are then sent to the Agent on Duty via text message. They are then able to conveniently respond via text message, email or phone. Information including, visitor contact details, conversation logs and more can be accessed by the administrator at any time. This ensures transparency between the brokerage and the Agent on Duty. 

The chat tool allows for complete customization to your branding, colours, and more.

SYNCRO helps to promote productivity among your agents who now find themselves working from home.  It will help agents feel connected to office leads.  It helps agents without big marketing budgets keep a foothold in the industry by connecting them with the parent site.

The only hard part is deciding who gets the next turn!

Are you ready to try out the Agent on Duty feature? Please reach out to us to set up a free demo account today!  Your agents will love the simplicity of SYCNRO website chat to text!

What makes SYNCRO a better business chat alternative to Facebook Messenger?

SYNCRO web chat is a better business chat alternative to Facebook Messenger.

Facebook is a multi billion dollar company. They’ve been known for great things, such as virtually connecting generations from across the globe. However, they’re also known for some really bad things, like selling their subscribers private data to third parties. We aren’t writing to debate the morality of this billion dollar juggernaut though. We simply want to point out the benefits and potential cost savings of choosing a lightweight company for your website chat to text solution.

After you read the following points, you’ll also likely oppose choosing the slow moving, billion dollar dinosaur for your instant business communication.

First, a bit more about FB and their messaging app. It has seen many iterations since it’s inaugural launch in 2011. Users have steadily increased in their affinity towards the app and it’s usefulness. This is even after the data shows that those 35 and under aren’t touching Facebook with a ten foot pole.

The social media giant’s biggest demographic gains fittingly come from the over 55 group, who are still actively creating and maintaining their profiles on FB. The group we would deem as ‘active in business mode’, or those between 35-55, are pretty much flat for the platform however. One could surmise that these are mostly people who have had accounts since the dawn of time, but they haven’t logged in at all recently. This demographic would not be considered as ‘actively, active’ on this platform. They would be considered in the prime age of doing business.

Personal Chat Vs. Business Chat Features

For all accounts it would appear that Facebook Messenger works best for personal use. If you have a FB account and you want to stay in touch with family, friends and acquaintances who also have FB accounts, then this could be the app for you. The app has so many features that make it fun for connecting with friends and family. Features such as ‘Story’, which allow users to share a compilation of photos with groups or friends. These stories magically disappear after 24 hours. That’s cool if you’re playing around with a group of friends, but not so cool for sharing important business communications. How do you explain to Bob in Victoria that you sent him pictures of the home he wants to buy but they disappeared after a day because you sent them via Story? This is certainly not a feature that is conducive to efficient business communications.

You can also add emojis and animated GIF’s to your shared photos and messages.

We’re still trying to figure out which business might be able to pull off the Reindeer filter or the Puppy Ears filter when chatting with their potential new leads.

That’s why these same features that make Messenger a win on the personal communication side are precisely the same features that could be seen as a distraction for your business – if not an utter detriment.

Regardless of the abundant cute filters and messages that self-destruct after 24 hours, let’s explore some of the other ways that SYNCRO is a better chat alternative to Facebook Messenger.

Barriers, Barriers Everywhere! Facebook Messenger Requires Users to Have an Active Account on their Privacy Averse Platform.

Facebook Messenger couldn’t possibly have more barriers to use if it tried. The thing with FB Messenger is that FB assumes that you have or want to have a FB account for yourself and your business on their privacy indifferent platform. Ask anyone under 35 if they’re on the platform and you’ll get a sense of what we mean.

It used to be that you could sign up for a Messenger account on the platform with only your phone number. However, FB made a very significant, albeit under the radar change, when they removed that option towards the end of 2019.

As of late 2019, Facebook Messenger requires that each user needs to have an active Facebook account if they want to use Messenger. This not only rendered the chat service useless for potential users who are 100% anti FB, but it also caused significant usage errors. Those users who were using FB’s chat app without a valid FB account prior to the secretive change were blindsided.

Those users simply woke up one morning to find out that the chat app they had relied on no longer worked. There were errors popping up that could only be corrected by caving and signing up with the social media conglomerate. You and all of your potential business partners, associates, colleagues and potential customers are now required to have an active profile on Facebook in order to effectively use Messenger.

In a perfect world we would all use Facebook – according to Facebook. That’s fine and great until you start considering the stats we’ve already mentioned above or if you happen to live in India. Facebook’s demographics are not exactly all encompassing these days. As it stands right now, Messenger would be great if your prime target is solely those over 55 years of age. If you want that money spending, sweet spot group of under 35 however, then we needn’t say more, but the Messenger app might not be your best choice.

SYNCRO is simply a better alternative to Facebook Messenger because we don’t require that you or your customers subscribe to anything. You can install SYNCRO on your website in a few minutes and your customers can initiate a chat with you instantly to your mobile phone. It’s that simple.

Facebook Messenger is an App. Apps Cost Businesses Money and Cause Headaches for Customers.

Facebook Messenger requires any user to download and install an app before it can be used. We regularly discuss the pitfalls of apps built for the primary focus of communication. Everything from obsolescence to inclusivity will all of a sudden be at the forefront of key business decisions if the chat solution you are considering is app based.

We have discovered that business owners are not prepared to make these decisions or are forced to make them on the fly after they have committed to using an app for chat.

These are often overlooked expenses that can drastically affect the cost of doing business. At the outset it may appear that SYNCRO will cost more to implement than the free Fb Messenger app, but there is more than meets the eye. When you factor in the cost of using an app for live chat you will also need to consider the following:

• What technology is required for the app to run? Will this tech require upgrades to mobile phones, tablets or computers now or in the near future?
• How often is the app patched and updated? Will these updates require that some or all of the hardware currently in use will require an update in the future?
• Will these updates affect my hardware or software and how the app runs and functions? Will I need to upgrade my device just for this one thing to work?
• Do my customers also need the app or an account in order for the live chat to work? Am I leaving potential sales out in the cold because they don’t use FB?
• How does the app integrate with my existing systems and data driven solutions? MLS for real estate? Dealer FX for Car Dealers?

SYNCRO doesn’t discriminate on the basis of your hardware, location, or any other infrastructure. As an alternative to Facebook Messenger, SYNCRO doesn’t require any user, new customer, visitor or operator to upgrade their hardware or software. Translation – no barriers or added costs to your business!

Companies can spend thousands of dollars trying to customize today’s version of Messenger to their business needs. Then they find themselves throwing more and more money at it as it changes versions. Effectively, a solution that was supposed to be free and easy is now a large item expense not to mention a bone of contention.

Businesses shouldn’t require their customers to sign up for an account they may not want or that they feel uncomfortable using. Live chat via SYNCRO doesn’t limit your audience in any manner. We have very little barriers to market for our customers to get set up and running easily. On the flip side, we also have very few barriers for your customers to chat with you once you have chosen to use SYNCRO as your chat provider.

The installation process is extremely efficient and users can begin using the chat software as soon as it’s configured. Configuration of SYNCRO only takes a few minutes from start to finish.

Facebook Messenger Wants to Protect your Privacy.

That statement alone isn’t just questionable given the public controversy surrounding FB and privacy – it’s laughable. Messenger is not the app you want to use if you’re concerned about privacy. If you want any sense of anonymity it’s also not going to be the live chat app for you.

For one, you require an active Facebook account. This means that you need to upload a profile picture, and a bit of some personal information. Let’s see, we’ll need the city where you live for starters. We will also require a phone number, email address, a few friends you might be connected to, some tagged photos, a business address, where you went to school, when you graduated, where you work now, how long you’ve worked there, and maybe throw in some of your hobbies for good measure. All of that information is of course public facing. Unless you dial in your privacy settings, which are also….subject to change at any time.

You have to ask yourself – is it worth it? Do I really need to share all of this data? Nonetheless, do I have to share all of this personal information with a corporate giant hell bent on re-sharing without permission? Facebook is built on the sharing model. It wants you to limit what is private and what is public facing. If they were sneaky before about privacy and data sharing and got away with it, you can only expect the behaviour to escalate.

One of the greatest features in SYNCRO is it’s capability of complete anonymity. The best part about this feature is that it’s also default out of the box. That means you don’t have to spend any time at all trying to figure out how to set it, when to set it, or how to use it.

This is another example of why SYNCRO is a better alternative to Facebook Messenger in the live chat space. The operator’s mobile phone number is never displayed to the customer, which means they can even use their own personal mobile phone with little risk of exposure. The only way a customer can get the operator’s number is if the operator responds to a text me tab inquiry or voluntarily discloses their personal information to a customer.

The customer on the other hand is encouraged to enter a valid email address and/or phone number in order to initiate the chat. This information is passed along to the operator along with the initial communication form the customer via text message and email. The customer never has the opportunity to gain the operators number unless it is voluntarily provided.

This is just one of the many great ways that SYNCRO protects your operators’ privacy. They don’t have to use a personal account that displays their real photo and detailed private information in order to interact with virtual strangers.

FB Messenger is Not Customizable, Can’t Be Whitelabeled and is Not Available to Resell.

If you want your customers to know that you’re using Facebook to connect with them instantly then FB makes that really easy, because you can’t customize the way FB Messenger looks. Your customers will always know that they are using Facebook Messenger because that’s what Facebook wants. And as evidenced above, what FB wants, it tends to get.

We know that customers want more flexibility than what FB Messenger is willing to provide. Not only do we offer really easy solutions for the customization of SYNCRO such as, colour matching, loading position, etc. but we also offer much more.

We offer businesses, agencies and designers the capability to Whitelabel and resell SYNCRO under their own brand. That’s something entirely different from what the Messenger app is offering. If you have large networks of business clients who you perform marketing tasks for then this is a great opportunity for an extra income stream.

We have resellers who use SYNCRO under their own brand and resell it back to their customers for a tidy profit each month. Real estate brokerages have embraced SYNCRO as part of their monthly marketing fees and include it when recruiting new agents. Marketing agencies are using it to attract new clients during the COVID-19 outbreak who find themselves now working from home. We also have automotive dealers and online portals who offer SYNCRO to their user base as add on services.

Everything is so simple and easy with SYNCRO from our straightforward billing plans to the ease of installation and use.

If you’ve been looking for an alternative to Facebook Messenger then this is your invitation to try out something completely innovative and business centric.

The title of this article may be a little misleading, as it sounds like SYNCRO live chat web app is only for a specific group of people, but that’s not true at all. At SYNCRO we have developed the best website chat software that works for anyone, but it can also be integrated into your website to work with your tools, products, and sales techniques. In this article we are going to breakdown how SYNCRO can work with different types of websites.

Real Estate

When we first came up with the idea for SYNCRO, we had real estate agents and brokerages in mind. When people are viewing real estate listings and have questions, they want answers right away. So we decided to build a chat tool that can be placed directly into the listing details page
of a website, so the user can contact the realtor directly in real time.

SYNCRO also works great for real estate broker websites as we can add a “Chat Now” button into all of the agent’s profiles on the website. We also built an “Agent on Duty” tool so that the brokerage has control over who the user speaks with on a specific day, on any page of their website. For these reasons alone, SYNCRO is by far the best chat software you’ll find for real estate. We offer a few different packages for real estate agents and brokerages, and you can read more about it here.

Automotive Dealerships

These days everything is purchased online, even cars! So with SYNCRO car dealerships can place a live chat web app into the details page of every car on their website. It can then connect the user directly to a dealer and get the answers they need that may not be on the website. This allows the user to get all the info they want without having to visit the dealership, and the dealer to close a deal without even meeting the person face to face.

If you are reading this and currently own an automotive dealership, we can offer a corporate plan at a discount to you, if your inventory is at a larger scale with a large sales team. Click here for a live demo.

Portals and Directories

These types of websites are perfect for a live chat web app, and frankly we’re surprised this isn’t done more often. Portal and directory websites were generally developed to be self-serve for the large community of members, but they have always lacked the ability to contact someone immediately and privately, without having to leave your information stored in a database.

Having their information stored can leave them vulnerable to malicious companies looking to contact them via telemarketers, but with SYNCRO their information is completely private and only the recipient of the message has their information. This will leave people feeling much more comfortable when contacting someone through a directory site.

In conclusion, at SYNCRO we have developed the best live chat software that works with any type of website, the examples above are just a tiny grain of sand in the ocean of websites out there. So if you’re looking for the top live chat software available right now, then look no further and contact us for a free trial, or click here to sign up today!

This may or may not be a secret, but one of our partner companies called EstateVue deals with real estate marketing and web development, which is one of the reasons we developed SYNCRO in the first place, so we know a lot about what works when it comes to generating leads for realtors.

Lead generation is one of the most important things when it comes to a real estate website, and if you don’t have a live chat app on your website, you may be missing out on thousands of dollars.

Chat programs allow the user to initiate a conversation with a realtor in real time, about any questions they may have about a specific property, listing a property with them, or just general questions about the agent themselves. This is such an important tool, as nowadays many realtors will have live chat apps on their site, and if you don’t then the user may go somewhere else, and you are now losing sales to your competition.

There are many ways you can integrate a chat tool into your real estate website. Of course you will want the live chat app on every page of your site, so we have built in the ability to let you know what page/URL the user was on when they initiated a chat.

You can also have a chat button or link on your listing details page, so that when the user is reading the listing info and they have a question, they can get an answer within seconds. Most users absolutely love that type of interaction and they will definitely stay on your site, come back to your site, and even recommend your site to others.

Another reason chat programs are becoming more popular is that people no longer have the time or patience to fill out a basic contact form and wait for a response. With a live chat app they can get the answers they want right away. But as web developers we understand how important contact forms still are, so we built the ability to create a contact form right in your SYNCRO account.

This way all of your chat conversation and contact form submissions are stored in the same place. No more having to look back through your deleted emails or logging into 3 or 4 different places to look at all of your leads.

There are so many ways a live chat app can benefit your real estate website, so if you’re looking for best chatting app, then give us a call today and we can walk you through all of our amazing features. Trust us when we say, you will NOT regret it. Or if you’re ready to sign up you can click here.

Is your car dealership still a bit old school and needing to catch up with the times? For many years car dealerships ran on just the car and the sales techniques of the salesman, but with the emergence of technology like online chat software, you have many more tools you can use to drive sales for your dealership. Here are 5 reasons why you need live chat software on your car dealership website.

User Experience

With the internet being the most powerful tool for shopping these days, car buyers are no longer wanting to go to a dealership. Many people are browsing online these days and are looking for general information about the car they are interested in. Having a chat service on your website allows you to interact with your users in real time, so that they can get the answers they want right away. If you behind the times and do not have a chat tool on your website, chances are your competitors do, and you’re losing out on sales.

Generating Leads

Most car dealerships won’t have issues actually getting visitors on their site, it’s getting those visitors to purchase a vehicle on your site that is the problem. As mentioned above, people are using the internet more and more for purchasing a vehicle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of the sales are coming from the website. Having a live chat app on your website allows you to turn the many visitors you get to your site, into qualified leads. It is a proven fact that having a chat tool on your website can actually double the leads you are getting online.

If you’re wondering what this tool may look like on your website, click here to see it in action.

Easy Integration

Now that we’ve talked a bit about why you need a live chat app on your website, let’s talk about how easy it is to install and the different settings available for you.

SYNCRO is very user friendly and easy to install. All you need to do is place the small piece of embed code into your site’s code, and BOOM it’s working on all pages of your website.

You can also use our PowerLinks to add a “Chat Now” button to each of the car’s individual details pages. This call to action entices the user to click on that button to get information immediately. Without this you may be losing out on a sale. Click here to learn more about this amazing feature.

We understand that many car dealers have a large staff of salespeople, and with SYNCRO you’re able to set your live chat app to whoever you would like, and with our chat scheduler you can even set the schedule months ahead of time. Set it once, and forget it!

For more information about having online chat software on your website, and the best chatting app around, contact us at SYNCRO or click here to sign up today.

Have you spent countless hours in your app store looking for the sms marketing tools, only to find that you’ve basically wasted your time and money? Well you can close that app down, clear it, and put your phone down. Because we have the solution you’ve been looking for.

Here at SYNCRO we understand the industry and our customers, and before the concepts were designed, and the code was written, we knew what our customers wanted… NO APPS! So with that in mind we did our research online searching for things like sms marketing tools, text marketing, and a live chat app. Do you know what we found? Absolutely nothing that didn’t require an app download on your device. So we knew we just had to develop a program that was app free, and easy to use.

I could go into ALL of our features again, but I just did that a month ago! We’d rather our blog doesn’t get bogged down with the same content each month. So if you’d like to give it a read go here!

What we’ll do instead is look into why you should use live chat software that doesn’t involve downloading an app, and why.

The Cons of an app

Before I get into this list, I’d like to clarify that as software developers we fully support our industry, and understand that apps are important for the functionality and enjoyment of your device… they just don’t need to be used for everything! So please don’t hate us after reading this.

Competition
When it comes to looking for the right app, too much competition can be very frustrating. If you search for “sms marketing tools” in your app store, you could be left with hundreds of apps to choose from. You might be thinking “why is that a problem?” As mentioned at the beginning of the article, you are now spending hours and perhaps money on all of these apps, and none of them could be what you’re looking for.

Compatibility
This point is important as most apps are able to be downloaded and used on many different platforms. The main problem with this is when an OS is updated the app can become outdated and may conflict with the new update. You are then left waiting for the developer to fix the bugs and release a new patch. Being that we develop software ourselves, we know how long those things can take. Did you also know that SYNCRO works without data? All you need is your SMS enabled on your phone and away you go!

Cost
Some of the apps may be free, but then you’re left with those pesky ads popping up every time you click a button, plus they are probably data mining your phone… To remove the ads, you will have to pay – so what’s the point? Then there are the apps that cost an arm and a leg just to purchase in the first place. Then if you don’t like it, you’ve already wasted your money, and most don’t offer a free trial.

The Pros of SYNCRO vs an app

When it comes to a live chat app, the biggest pro to SYNCRO is that it’s not really an app, in that it’s not in the same vein as a mobile app. With SYNCRO you don’t download a single thing to your phone, and it works without being connected to any data network.

The first thing we’ll do is offer you a free trial (again most apps won’t do this), and setup the account for you. All you need to do is add the simple piece of embed code to your website and BOOM, you have a working online chat tool right on your website.

When a user starts a chat with you it goes directly to your mobile phone as a text message, using your phones default texting application. You are then able to respond to that message just like you would if one of your friends or family were sending you a text message, from virtually anywhere I might add.

With SYNCRO it’s that simple. No time wasted looking for apps, no money wasted trying all these apps, just an easy simple solution that works on any SMS enabled phone.

If we haven’t caught your attention by now, feel free to give us a call and we can walk you through all of our features, and get you setup with the easiest online chat tool on the market, in seconds.

18777629453, or click here to sign up!

These days lead generation from your website is the best way to gain new business, or sell your products and services. But there is no magic here, and if you’re not utilizing the best tools to generate leads from your website, you are just wasting your money. Does this sound like you? Are you looking for a list of the best SMS services for business? We don’t have a list per say, but that’s just because we know we’d be at the top of that list!

At SYNCRO web chat we offer you the best ways to generate quality leads from your website using our online chat tool, and all the other products it includes. Before we started SYNCRO we had been, and still are, in the internet marketing business. With over 20 years of experience we understand how important generating leads from your website is, and best of all, we know how to make it happen. With that knowledge in mind, SYNCRO was born.

Let’s take a look back at what the lead generation trends have been in the industry: Email links, basic contact forms, and basic PC to PC chat tools. While these techniques are still being used today, they’re just not enough anymore.

Contact forms still work great, but only if you’re paying attention to the leads coming in, and are actually following through with them. The problem with relying on this method alone, is the user is always left waiting for the owner to eventually respond.

PC to PC online chat tools can also work… if the owner wants to spend their own time, or hire someone to spend time on the website all day and night, waiting to reply to a chat request.

This is where SYNCRO comes in. We have used our years of experience and knowledge of the industry to give you the best SMS services for business. Our website chat software allows you to receive and respond to chat requests from your website right on your cell phone! Whether you are out for lunch, on the road (don’t text and drive), or just taking a day off from the office, you will always be available to chat with a customer without having to sit in front of your computer.

Given how powerful SYNCRO’s online chat software is, we could just stop at the chat tool and let everyone reap the rewards, but that’s not how we roll. We have built in many features into SYNCRO, and if you click on each one below, you can get a detailed breakdown of how they work.

SYNCRO includes an additional “Text Me Tab” so that if you’re unable to chat, the user can still send you a test. We also have our “Chat Trigger,” so if you’re away from the phone or driving, a custom automated message will pop-up on your behalf. But if you don’t want a robot speaking for you, you can also use our “Chat Rollover” feature that rolls the chat over to another person, if you cannot respond yourself.

We also include a contact form that you can add to your website that we call a “PowerForm.” You can embed a contact form directly into your website in minutes, and it is tied to your SYNCRO account, so all the leads coming from your website, including the online chat tool, are stored in the same place.

This is just a brief summary on a few of the ways SYNCRO can increase the lead generation from your website. So put away that list of best SMS services for business, because you have now found the best one. Give us a call to try out the one and only SYNCRO, FREE for 7 days!

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Privacy might be the answer to bringing buyers, sellers, agents and brokers back together again.                     

We recently pitched as one of the 15 finalists at the RealogyFWD innovation event in San Francisco and it was very apparent that both judges and attendees had data and privacy on the mind.  A common theme in questioning of each selected finalist centered on how companies were protecting customers from issues related to SPAM, data collection and specifically what measures each company was undertaking to ensure that personal data remained safe. It’s with good reason that the judges had this commonality in their lines of questioning each company.  There has been a shift in recent years towards consumers being more cautious and protective over where the information they’ve submitted online is ending up. We aren’t just talking sensitive data like social security numbers and credit card data either. We’re referring to the more simple readily accessible data such as email addresses and phone numbers.  Once upon a time, customers would hand over their email address and mobile number without so much as the bat of an eyelash, and now we’ve seemingly flipped to a once digitally spammed twice shy kind of crowd.

SYCNRO was created much in part to help alleviate the online pressure tactic of you give me all your data and only then I’ll show you what I’ve got mentality. We increasingly see contact forms abandoned and surreptitiously viewed only to be closed out with an exodus from the website entirely. We know that this sudden aversion to contact forms has everything to do with empty promises, misappropriation of confidential information and you could even throw in a hint of desensitization for good measure. For so long we were accustomed to filling out contact forms that requested more than too much in the way of personal details like: what our price range was, if we had been pre-qualified etc. and we kindly obliged until some started saying no and even more started questioning why?

So how is SYNCRO helping to fight the good fight on privacy and more importantly how are we bringing buyers, sellers, agents and brokers back together again?  It starts with removing impersonal, outdated contact forms from websites thereby asking brokerages and agents to stop being reliant on tech to do what should be the most human component of their job – prequalifying the lead.  We’re calling for brokers and agents to stop being dismissive about their online leads and to start genuinely engaging with them in the most honest way possible – by taking the time to get to know the human on the other side.  It’s a tall order and in order to build this level of trust with your online leads you need some serious data safeguarding in place.  Take a look at how SYNCRO is helping to protect agents, brokers and customers through privacy and SPAM controls.

THREE IS MAGIC. When you’re trying to establish trust online less is more. Which is why we only require three very basic pieces of information from a customer in order for them to be able to engage with a listing owner. Name, email and what their question is.  We aren’t digging into the nitty-gritty of when they want to buy, how many bedrooms they need and what they paid in taxes last year.  This less is more in the required data field approach makes engaging more accessible and less scary for customers.  Think of it as an icebreaker.  You wouldn’t walk up to someone you didn’t know at a party and ask them how much they made last year. The same goes for online leads, you need to start small, build a connection and then start negotiating the tougher questions.

ROBOT SPAM BE GONE.  By default our live chat to text solution is SPAM proof because a human has to physically click to call the chat dialogue box up into action, fill in three required pieces of information and click again in order to initiate the chat.  Robots don’t have that kind of time. This protects agents and brokers from wasting time on bogus leads.

HUMAN SPAM. WE’RE WATCHING YOU TOO.  We’ve taken it the extra mile and built in further SPAM reduction mechanisms that prevent malicious humans from typing in nonsensical words like lkhhh, swear words (which admittedly was a fun exercise) and there is also a character limit in the question field to eliminate the possibility of people sending you long drawn out propositions meant for your email’s SPAM folder.

PRIVACY IS IN.  One of the most unique features about SYNCRO website chat to text is the anonymity features. As an agent you don’t have to broadcast your mobile phone number if you yourself have privacy concerns, because as far as we’re concerned privacy is a two way street these days. For every SPAM happy sales agent there are an equal number of quirky buyers that would love to have your personal cell number on speed dial. SYNCRO allows you to enter in a phone number which can be used for the click to call button (see screen cap below) but we don’t make it mandatory for that number to match the mobile number you are using to text back to the software. We have many agents who prefer to use the brokerages landline as a click to call action for added personal security.  At no point during a SYNCRO chat is your mobile number ever exposed to the person you are chatting with on the other end. Unless of course you volunteer it at some point during your correspondence.

YOU GOTTA WORK FOR THAT NUMBER.  All incoming website chats are sent directly over to your mobile phone first and foremost, but all you will see is the information that the customer has volunteered, which again, is the data entered in the Name, Email Address and Question fields. All of this information, along with the website URL of the page they initiated the chat from, the MLS# and property address (if using the IDX version) will come instantly to your mobile in the form of a text message from the internal SYNCRO phone number. This phone number is in no way associated with the customer on the other end. The only way you can get the customers phone number is if you ask for it and they voluntarily oblige.

NO BULLIES ALLOWED.  In the unfortunate event you receive a chat that turns hateful or harassing you can simply ignore the text message without fear that person has any additional contact details from you.  We can also block users from ever contacting you through SYNCRO again if a pattern of abuse arises.  As for the consumer, if they aren’t impressed with your responses for whatever reason, they can simply close the window on the chat and rest easy knowing that no personal contact details have been disclosed outside of the required three fields. Our only pay for real leads mantra guarantees that you won’t be charged for bullies.

At the end of the day we have launched a lead conversion mechanism that is allowing for a more organic and personal sales approach. We’re taking the core ingredients of Internet privacy and anonymity, combining it with this new social phenomenon of instant gratification, but we’re throwing the whole thing back to the days when a sales agent had to work a little harder to build trust, rapport and goodwill with their customers before earning their business and possibly even more precious… their coveted phone number.

Have you ever felt like you were shooting darts at water while searching for property on a broker website or a search portal?  Maybe you’ve narrowed it down and drilled into a property that you love and started to arrange your furniture, so you take the next logical step and click on that evil little email icon (the one that should effectively be renamed abyss or black hole) and you sit back and wait for an eternity that never comes.  Well you aren’t alone. In fact, over 48% of online leads submitted via email (contact forms included) are never, ever responded to.

That stat doesn’t bode well for those sellers who entrust real estate agents to be responsive to all methods of communication in order to sell their largest lifetime asset.  A quick randomized test using Canada’s largest portal realtor.ca and you’ll see how many agents respond to emails about their listings.  We emailed five random agents with condo listings all under a price point of 300k and asked a simple question about the condos they had listed and what the pet policy was. Not one email was returned. Zero.

There’s lots of talk these days about how much longer email has left on this earth. Entire companies have given email up completely and actually banned their employees from using it, because at the end of the day some things aren’t made to wait. Real estate sales should specifically be added to that list.

We were just spot checking a couple of agents when we threw out our one liner: “Does this building have a pet policy in place and if so can you tell us more about the restrictions. ” This was a question that required a very simple answer, either yes or no and then maybe one or two more sentences to explain the yes or no answer.  For example, “Yes. You can have one dog or one cat no bigger than 21”.

Pretty simple, but is email really the best way to negotiate that conversation? Absolutely not. I would say the best way would be over telephone, but unfortunately even the good ol’ telephone has been getting a bad rep for being a privacy invader these days.  Somehow phoning someone that isn’t expecting your call has become like showing up uninvited to a wedding. It’s downright tacky and that sentiment is even spilling over to the business world. So how do we connect and make it simple?  Chat for one. And text messaging for two.

This is a new powerhouse combo that allows us to save email and phone for the right context and start funneling leads who are still in that courting phase, down the right path.

SYNCRO has taken the powerful combination of chat plus text to a whole new level by also integrating a third factor into the powerhouse combo. Data. We’ve made it so that a broker or a portal or an agent with lots of listings can embed a chat window into each individual property listing.

Screencaps of SYNCRO website chat to SMS text embedded into an IDX data feed.

This allows a visitor to stay immersed and intrigued on the property details page and call up a ‘chat with the listing agent now’ box.  They can ask their simple question without having to give up too much personal information and feel comfortable knowing that they still have a shred of privacy while they test you out. The benefit to the agent, is that all of the information, including what listing the person is viewing, is sent over to them via text message. No matter where they are in their busy day they can take a couple of seconds to respond immediately and engage in a back and forth dialogue  with the customer who is viewing their listing.

Why do we say immediately?  How many text messages (your mom’s not included) do you ignore or save until later when you’re more comfortable?

Take a read through these four points about text messaging and see if it fits better with how you’re handling your online lead right now.

Text messaging according to David Nield, Demand Media, was designed for:

Immediacy – Texts are delivered immediately and directly to a device that most of us have with us at all times. Not as many of us are checking email on such a regular basis — even if someone owns a phone capable of sending and receiving email, there’s no guarantee email is being checked as regularly as text messages. SMS messages have more of a sense of urgency, whereas email tends to be seen as information that can be responded to at a later date. With cell numbers typically more closely guarded than email addresses, a text message also represents a more personal and intimate connection.

Mobility – The benefits of being able to receive an SMS anywhere also apply to the sending part of the process — a text can be sent from any location you can get a data connection, and there’s no need for email client software to get up and running. Most modern smartphones now come with built-in email clients, but texting remains simpler to do, and is the only option if you’re using a more basic cell phone.

Brevity- SMS messages are almost always typed out on a mobile phone keypad, whereas emails are generally composed on a full-sized keyboard or a bigger tablet keypad. This limitation can work to the advantage of SMS, encouraging shorter messages that get to the point. Paragraphs and text formatting are all stripped away, leaving only the message itself. While email may be preferable for discussing topics in-depth, texting has the advantage when it comes to making quick arrangements or sending shorter messages.

Security- Spam messages and group emails have to some extent diluted the impact of email. Messages sent over email can easily get lost or inadvertently filtered out of the inbox. While text messages can be sent to a group, or used to spam users, the problem is not as widespread as it is with email — this gives the SMS format another advantage. Virus attachments and malicious links are other problems with email that don’t exist to the same extent on text messages, making it a more secure platform as well.

So if you are a broker or portal with lots of real estate listings you might want to consider embedding chat into your data. It might just solve some immediate immediacy issues encountered by consumers.  What do you think?  Do you think leads are better sent via text so that they can be dealt with more efficiently?  Let us know in the comments or message us on Twitter.

There are a lot of chat tools out there, we aren’t denying that fact. You can choose from typical PC to PC chat tools and even chat tools that filter your leads through an answering service style call center before they are sent back to you, in pristine verified (albeit days old cold) condition.  SYNCRO is different.

For one, SYNCRO was developed specifically for real estate.  It’s true we have found other uses within other verticals where SYNCRO works beautifully, but at the basic level we designed this website chat tool for the demanding life of a real estate professional.   Understanding this fact is key when choosing a chat tool for your real estate business.

We know the real estate profession the same way we know our way around the office during a power outage, which means we feel your pain.  Always being pulled in different directions, from broker meetings, to client showings to flaky listing appointments.  Never mind the fact that you also want to try and squeeze some life out of your 24 hours! At the core that’s why we made SYNCRO. To accommodate your relentlessly busy, mobile schedule.

SYNCRO was designed to allow you to pick up and go mobile without worrying about missing leads from your online sales efforts. You’ve spent good money on websites, directory placement, SEM, SEO and online partnerships and we want you to be able to reap those traffic rewards and get some real conversions, without having to be chained to your desk in order to do so.  Or even worse, feeling guilty because you wanted to step away for a coffee or maybe even go watch your kids play a game of soccer.

SYNCRO lets you stay in touch with all of your online leads by sending chat style messages from your website visitors, your IDX listings on your brokers’ website portal and/or your directory ads, through to your mobile phone as a SMS text message.  This allows you to respond back to your chat leads instantly and start engaging with them to create a more human, more likeable interaction.  The side benefits of SYNCRO are as follows:

• No learning curve – you already know how to text and you already have a website. And if you aren’t already using chat then you should be. Put all of this together and we guarantee your value as a responsive, engaging real estate agent will skyrocket.
• No downloads – we know you want to keep your phone apps free for things like Facebook and Instagram, so we aren’t going to make you install something to take away from your faves. The upside is you also don’t have to remember a password to sign in for it to work. Once it’s set up in your website it just works.
• IDX/MLS integration – Did you know that 48% of online leads never get responded to? That’s because email has become over negotiated either sipped over, forgotten about or just written off as SPAM.  Texting was designed to be instant and instant turns leads into lifetime customers.
• Human to Human – It’s hard to do business with a brand these days. More and more people are becoming disheartened with technology because people are trying to automate engagement. You can’t.  You can automate the process, but you absolutely cannot afford to alienate your customers by passing them off.  Be genuine. Let them know that they are in fact talking to not only the horse’s mouth, but be responsive and let them know that their business matters.  90% of customers will continue to do business with the first agent who responds to them.

With all of these great benefits and our easy to use, pay per lead pricing system why wouldn’t you look for a website chat software that was designed with your life in the real estate sector in mind?

Have you found other ways to engage with your clients that are just as effective?  Give us some feedback in the comments!  Or better yet – put SYNCRO to the test with our no credit card required free to install trial.  We’ll give you ten free messages to kick our tires, so go ahead take your leads like your coffee – to go!