Feature release: save time with ‘auto-parsing’ for leads and enquiries from the portals

The Leads functionality (as you’ll already probably know) sends enquiries from the portals straight into Rex to be organised, processed and attended to. Basically, this is to sift actual enquiries from your other emails, so you don’t have to fuddle about in an overflowing inbox tediously panning out the leads from the Nigerian princes. Having all your enquiries – and enquiries alone – sent straight to your CRM works well. Nothing slips through the cracks and your life is instantly more organised. So far it’s worked pretty damn well. But ‘pretty damn well’ is far from perfect - we still had a few tricks up our sleeves.

No more manual processing

The biggest problem with the Leads functionality was that once your enquiries were in the system you’d still need to faff about searching for the Contact Record manually. This meant copy-and-pasting names, email addresses and phone numbers to try and find out whether or not you already had a Contact Record for them saved within the system. Copy-and-pasting is far from our favourite pastime. As a matter of fact, copying-and-pasting (while great for high-school philosophy assignments) is probably one of the most archaic traditions of computing. Sure, our shoulders are broad enough to bear this cross, but wouldn’t it be better if your software just did it for you? Well, now Rex does. Once an enquiry is entered from a portal, as well as notifying you of a new lead, Rex automatically searches (by phone number and email address) to match it with the appropriate contact. Once it finds the right record, the system automatically processes the lead and attaches the enquiry for you. Obviously, this relies on the information we receive from the portal to work. Rex is pretty clever when it comes to matching data from emails with what you already have in your database, and you’ll have absolutely no issue with enquiries from realestate.com.au, Domain, All Homes, Homehound, Homesales, Million Plus, On The House, Real Commercial, REIWA and The Homepage. Other lesser known portals should also work - as well as enquiries from your website (and others’) - but we can’t guarantee Rex will be able to perfectly match enquiries in strange, foreign formats.Regardless, no longer will you have to copy-and-paste the details from 20 different emails a day - and this saved time is going to seriously add-up over the days, weeks, months and years. It’s like we’ve ‘employed’ a tiny, tireless, unpaid intern to manage your filing. Feel free to work him overtime. Plus, this little guy is incredibly precise - nothing will be overlooked. When mere mortals like you or I get into autopilot-mode, copying-and-pasting the same fields over and over, it’s easy to make mistakes without realising. Your CRM is more efficient, accurate and valuable than ever - benefitting your entire agency well into the future.

Automatically generate Contact Records

In cases where Rex can’t find any matching Contact Records, it’ll simply create one – in much the same style as our recent Homepass integration. Although leads from the portals usually come with paltry amounts of information, we can still use the limited data to fill out;

• Their name
• Phone number
• Email address
• The lead itself

It’s a CRM that generates it’s own leads - all you need to do is get started on closing the sale.

Realestate.com.au enquiries automatically linked to Listing Records

The more connections in your web of data the more powerful it becomes. We’re aiming for the highest thread count on this tapestry - hence why we’ll also link the enquiry to the appropriate Listing Record. (This is only possible with enquiries from realestate.com.au, as it’s the only portal with an API that allows us do so). That means when the time comes to start negotiating the price between your seller and buyers, you have all the interested parties in one place. The most logical place, of course, is the Listing Record itself. This makes it even easier to create bulk mail merges with updates on the sale - plus, it gives the vendor a more accurate and complete picture of how much interest their property is getting. You can whip out the iPad or laptop and show them in an instant that all your hard work is paying off.

Wrapping up

To finish, let’s run through the benefits one last time. We’ll do it in dot-points, because that’s what you tech-savvy whippersnappers demand nowadays.

1. No more manual processing. Taking the time-consuming burden of manually copying enquiries into your contact records means you have more time to focus on providing a better service - or, if you prefer, knocking off fifteen minutes earlier and fitting in an extra beer at the pub.
2. The lack of any ‘manual labour’ means that there’s zero chance of any mistakes. A computer doesn’t make mistakes - except, of course, for that one in I-Robot who mistakenly saved Will Smith instead of that little girl. Rex, however, isn’t faced with these sorts of decisions, so we won’t have to worry about that sort of thing for at least another decade. You can be safe in the knowledge your entire agency will benefit from a cleaner, easier database without facing any Asimovian legal issues.
3. You can show your vendors their Listing Record, and have a complete overview of all the interest their property is receiving at any time, anywhere. This solidifies in their mind that you’re absolutely killing the selling of their property, resulting in happier customers impressed with your tech know-how and efficiency.

Help documentation and set-up

All you need to do to get this feature up and running for you is enable it. For more information on The Leads system, and the portals that Rex works with, check out these help documents;

• Introduction to Leads
• What Australian portals does Rex publish to?
• What New Zealand portals does Rex publish to?

Update - September 8, 2016: the leads auto-parsing functionality now also works with trademe.co.nz and realestate.co.nz The Leads functionality is a premium Rex feature, not included in your normal subscription. If you haven’t already, and you’d like to set it up on your account, you can do so by contacting support at support@rexsoftware.com.