Chat Bot 2.0 for Brokers

In 2013, WAV Group performed the most comprehensive research on responsiveness to consumer leads on broker websites. At the time, more than 50 percent of consumer inquiries were not responded to at all! For those that did respond, the quality of the response was very low and the time to respond was about 15 hours. The research highlighted an enormous disconnect between the efforts of brokers to drive consumer engagement though marketing and the problem with conversion.

Since the paper, we have seen a few trends emerge. Zillow has created a center of excellence around concierge services to connect consumers from their websites with agents in real time. Zillow is the first responder and endeavors to make a live hand off to Zillow Premier Agents. Howard Hanna and others have adopted the offering of live operators too. It's working! But the expense of operating these call centers is significant, averaging about $58,000 in full-time employee costs.

In the case of Zillow Group, they recuperate the cost of the concierge in the fees charged to Premier Agents for marketing. In the case of enterprise brokers like Howard Hanna and others, they recuperate the costs of live operators though increased conversion rates and sometimes referral fees on co-broke listings. More than that, companies who have adopted concierge services are providing an enhanced consumer experience by delivering the services that the consumer expects when they enquire about property. They have overcome the consumer feeling that when they inquire about the most expensive purchase of their lives, someone is there to help them.

Thousands of other firms have deployed chat bots. If you look at a site like NP Dodge or Ebby.com, you will see a Ready Chat feature. Live chat is certainly less costly than a live operator and does take the first step at delivering a baseline service to the consumer. The most profound change that is happening in the chat space is the introduction of artificial intelligence. We call this Chat Bot 2.0.

Chat Bot 2.0 for brokers is represented by a new class of chat technology. It's smart! It knows what page the consumer is on. It asks the consumer questions in a non-threatening way that makes home search easy. If you try the chat bot on Keyes.com or bhhsgeorgia.com, you will experience a chat bot that is powered by artificial intelligence. In their case, they are using an artificial intelligent bot developed by Montreal-based Roof.ai. In our discussions with those firms, it has delivered much higher results in consumer satisfaction and consumer engagement. Marilyn Wilson at the WAV Group has coined the term "conversational marketing" to highlight this re-imagined application that is delivering outstanding results to the business and that consumers love.

In the future, we see Chat Bot 2.0 as being a much more efficient process for brokers to engage the consumer. These technologies are much less expensive than a human service and can deliver equal or better results than an operator. We expect that Chat Bot 2.0 will allow brokers to re-target consumers across platforms away from the broker site. They can pick up a conversation on Facebook though Facebook Messenger. They can ask questions that hydrate other applications like broker CRM, prompt CMAs/listing presentations, deliver Buyside reports about market demand, integrate with showing services for showing management. These integrations can all be done using application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow systems to talk, and the AI bot acts as the bridge between them all.

On the flip side, these 2.0 Chat Bots can even be programmed to coach real estate agents. They can prompt an agent to make calls, door knock, perform transaction management activities, attend training, adopt broker technology offerings, etc. We saw an application that even walks an agent through the process of creating and ordering a flyer. For too long now, artificial intelligence in real estate has been a golden idea, but there were too few companies that understood how to take the idea and integrate it into the brokerage. WAV Group now feels confident that brokerages can adopt this technology to significantly improve their performance in many ways to serve their consumer and agent customers in profound ways.

If you need support in developing your artificial intelligence strategy and integrating it with your brokerage, WAV Group can help. We have deep experience in understanding how to implement these products and extract the maximum value to your firm. WAV Group also now offers the service to integrate the tools. If you want to make a difference in your business, reach out to us today!

To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.