Perhaps one of the most mobile groups of professionals working today is in the real estate industry. They’re always in the field, rarely in the office and always need to be connected to clients, other agents, mortgage lending firms, surveyors, lawyers and more. And with home sales in the U.S. on a steady rise, according to the National Association of Realtors in an August announcement, and housing prices set to rise among limited housing supply in Australia, and signs of steady recovery in the UK, the pace for real estate agents around the world is looking to get even busier and more competitive.
The customer service that results from multi-tasking and keeping track of discussions, decisions and follow-up action items is essential to a real estate agent’s success. Fortunately voice-to-text services available today are helping many real estate agents work more efficiently, increase productivity and improve client communications.
For example, real estate agents on a service such as SpinVox can use their mobile phone to speak themselves a voice-to- email message that captures in near real-time the synopsis of a conversation, delivery request or decision whereas before it may have taken hours before an agent could write up notes for their files. Now the information is waiting for them in their email InBox and includes day/time stamp of when notes were made.
Or let’s say the agent just put in a bid for a house and is heading into a meeting where it would be inappropriate to take a call or dial into a voicemail – with voicemail-to-text the agent can now read the voice message content during the meeting and know immediately what, if any, action may be needed or can forward to an assistant for immediate follow-up.
A great tool for communications with clients, voice-to-text services can also be used to speak a text message to a client or colleague recapping a conversation or confirming next steps for a home sale. And when the client leaves a voice message they know it will be received by the agent in text format – so the agent is always available to the client. Having been involved in the home buying and selling process a few times, as a client that kind of follow-up and availability really lets me know the agent is thinking about me and driving the home buying/selling process forward. And as stressful as home buying and selling can be – anything that puts the client’s mind at ease is improving the customer experience and proving the value of the agent!
And if all these benefits weren’t enough – with all the notes and messages captured in text format they are easily organized, archived and shared with colleagues or clients as needed – reducing the number of papers and documents that must be kept up with throughout the day!
Have you experienced voice-to-text in your day-to-day life be it for business or personal use or are you using it to improve customer service in your business? We would love to hear from you on your experience — please drop us a comment…!
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