Add this software to your website to gain trust and better understand your leads.
If you’ve spent time improving your website, digging into analytics, and performing targeted marketing, but still aren’t achieving your goals around conversion, implementing a chatbot in your website may be the next right step for you.
When it comes to making the most of real estate lead generation services, targeting user engagement on your website is often the most effective way to convert new leads into future clients. While marketing efforts of all sorts, both in-person and online, should play a role in your growth plan as a luxury real estate agent, optimizing your online presence will often make an especially large impact on your business conversions over time. In some cases, even when a website’s design is intuitive and professional, users fall off without converting.
Depending on the setup of your website, your niche, and your goals, conversions may mean something different to you than they do for another real estate agent or certainly for a professional in a different industry. In e-commerce, conversions occur when website visitors purchase an item from the website. In real estate, it’s not quite that simple. For luxury real estate agents, website conversions might look like bookings for new buyer consultations or scheduled showings for one of your listings. Ideally, these online actions lead to the true conversions of buying and selling homes with your professional guidance.
Especially if your website visitors are coming to your site but never booking showings or meetings, a chatbot may help increase your online conversion rate. Here’s how.
What Are Chatbots?
Almost everyone has seen or interacted with a chatbot in some way while surfing the internet. With good reason, they’ve become quite common on websites from e-commerce to SaaS. Simply put, a chatbot is a computer program on a website that can communicate via online chat with web users.
There’s a wide range of chatbots ranging from AI-powered programs that can carry out full conversations and seem quite natural, to simple multiple-choice systems that can perform just a few functions and gather a bit of user information for you to come back to. The click-through rate on chatbots ranges from 15%-60%, with a large range due to the wide variety of different programs and other factors impacting each website. With the possibility of engaging up to 60% of visitors to your website by simply implementing a software program on your website, it’s worth exploring the possibility of adding a chatbot to your site.
Quick Engagement
No matter how dedicated you are to following up quickly to online questions and inquiries, on most days there will inevitably be a delay between when someone reaches out and when you’re able to get back to them. That’s the nature of the business — online presence is a huge piece of the puzzle to finding success as a luxury real estate agent, but your role involves so many in-person demands that you can’t possibly engage with every email and social media message right away. While that’s to be expected, it’s also an unavoidable fact that this downtime on the side of your new contact means you’re losing valuable momentum.
Adding a chatbot to your website means you can help your online community to get started, even when you’re not available to respond yourself. Picture this: someone clicks on a social media ad you’re running because they’ve been considering selling their home. Maybe they’re very early on in their decision and only considering their options, with more questions than answers. They click on your ad almost mindlessly, as many people do while scrolling on social media. However, when they land on your website, instead of needing to make the decision of where to click from your landing page or which blog post to read, a chat appears: How can I help?
Now, instead of needing to click around your site themselves or hunt down the information they could benefit from, they can simply click through options within the chat and ideally will be led to content that’s most helpful for them, or might even go right to scheduling a meeting with you to get their questions answered.
While the exact capabilities and depth of conversation possible for a chatbot will depend on the exact software and service you use, chatbots can generally interact with users to guide them through simple questions and point them in the direction of the correct resources or get them over to your scheduling software. This instant help takes the guesswork out of the equation for your users, which can land you with more satisfied, impressed, warm leads without much additional effort on your end. If your users don’t want to interact with a chatbot, all they need to do is click X. No harm, no foul!
Customizable Communication
Chatbots are also handy for increasing conversions because most chatbot programs are customizable. There’s not one single script that your chatbot has to follow. Instead, you can choose what your greeting looks like, and depending on the program, you may be dictating each step of the user journey by creating the questions and possible answers your chatbot will present to your website’s visitors.
Being able to hand-pick the first communication your website visitors see from you means you have control over the tone and style you set forth right away. Chatbots can help to elevate and emphasize your brand, automatically.
Memorable Service
Because chatbots are still relatively new, most internet users are used to surfing the web or clicking on ads and needing to do a bit of clicking around or searching in order to find what they really need. Many users, especially those who have come to your website on purpose through search or another one of your online pages, may be willing to spend that extra time surfing around. However, how much more helpful is it when they just have to answer a couple of quick, targeted questions in order to find the content they really want? Instead of scrolling down your homepage to find your listing search tool, your users could instead answer your chatbot with “Search for homes” and be instantly presented with the information they need.
This small bit of help might seem insignificant, but we move very quickly on the internet. A page that takes a few seconds too long to load might scarcely be seen. Likewise, even if you’re saving your website visitors just half a minute of searching your menus and your homepage, you’re already adding value to their experience and providing memorable service, without having to dedicate more of your time or energy in doing so. Your website will instantly stand out for not only keeping up with digital trends but also for working as an easy-to-use resource for your future clients. This first step of adding value and building trust will help you to secure meetings and home sales down the line.
Instant Insights
In addition to the help you’re providing to anyone who visits your site by implementing a chatbot, you’re also gathering helpful insights to utilize in your business and marketing plans moving forward. After your chatbot has been up and running for a bit, you can use its interactions as data points. The clickthrough rate on your chatbot is a key metric of its own.
Depending on the program, you might also be able to identify the percentage of people who want to book a meeting, who want to browse your listings, or who simply came to peruse your blog. In conjunction with your existing website analytics, these data points can help drive changes to your website or lead you to identify gaps in your messaging or marketing. You may even collect written feedback and specific questions, which you can incorporate into your content marketing strategy as helpful posts in the future. Chatbots are a quick and easy way to better understand your online audience.
A chatbot is simply an additional way for you to better listen to the needs and questions of your leads. Leveraging them can allow your leads to feel that you’re attentive and caring, while you can rest assured that every visitor to your website is getting at least some of the answers they came for right away. Initiating two-way communication is one of the quickest ways to form trust and connection with your new leads, and those feelings of trust play a huge role in the way people eventually select a real estate professional to help them buy or sell their home. Be there for your leads at every hour, without burning out, when you add a chatbot to your website.
Want to Learn More?
Read more of our lead generation insights and then get in touch with our team at Luxury Presence to start building your brand, closing more deals, and expanding your network.
