What a chatbot is, how to integrate it into your marketing, and how it turns leads into clients.
If you want to sell luxury real estate, you need real estate lead generation services that deliver on their promises. Excellent luxury real estate advertising will get your properties in front of the right potential buyers — those who have both the interest and the funds to buy the homes you are selling. It will also help turn those potential buyers into actual clients.
One of the most important aspects of advertising in this day and age is immediacy. Your prospects and clients want their questions answered quickly and will lose patience if they don’t get immediate attention from you. Since you and your team are often busy showing properties or meeting with clients and can’t respond instantly to every inquiry you receive, you need a solution.
That’s where chatbots come in.
What is a Chatbot?
A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversations. Basically, it’s a way for you to “be there” for your clients without actually having to be there. A chatbot is designed and programmed to communicate as though it were human. Chatbots are driven by natural-language processing, machine learning, and automated rules and can respond to a number of different requests.
In general, there are two different types of chatbots:
1) Conversational chatbots. These data-driven chatbots are sometimes also called digital or virtual assistants. They are interactive, personalized, and predictive and can learn from user behavior and profiles. These types of chatbots can initiate conversations, monitor data, and provide recommendations. Good examples of these types of sophisticated chatbots are Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
2) Declarative chatbots. These chatbots are programmed to perform a single function — to give automated yet natural-sounding responses to user questions. The responses from declarative chatbots are structured and can be likened to interactive FAQs. They answer common questions such as hours of operation or how to get in touch with a representative of your agency and are the most common types of chatbots used in real estate lead generation services.
Chatbots can be used on social media through business pages. The basic features are automated, but you can work with a Facebook or other social media specialist to help you alter responses so that social media chatbots can respond to a variety of questions. You can also use chatbots on your website to respond to prospective buyers or sellers’ inquiries.
What are Lead Conversions?
When it comes to luxury real estate advertising, it’s all about conversions. A conversion happens when an existing lead (someone interested in your services) turns into an actual client. The goal of lead generation services is to allow you or one of your agents to speak to a person who wants to buy or sell a home and may make a good client for you. However, it’s your job to actually “convert” them into clients. Being responsive and quick to reply to inquiries is one of the best ways to convert your leads into those who do business with you.
How Does a Chatbot Increase Conversions?
It’s difficult to promptly answer all questions that come through your website and social media channels. They may happen after hours, on weekends, or at a time when you are busy with other tasks related to your real estate business.
One of the issues with real estate lead generation services is the need to respond to leads before they get impatient and reach out to one of your competitors. A chatbot can fill in for you or another member of your team and answer basic questions immediately. This fulfills the prospect’s need for quick responses and can buy you enough time to find an opportunity to speak to the prospect personally and turn them into a client.
What’s the Best Way to Implement a Chatbot?
If you’re using chatbots for luxury real estate advertising on Facebook, they will integrate with Facebook’s Messenger chat application. You can create a variety of different custom Facebook chatbots, from a simple menu-based bot to one that is more intuitive and can answer commonly asked questions.
Chatbots are also an important part of your website lead generation services. You can use them in the following ways:
• To give immediate and smart replies to questions. For example, if a prospect uses key terms such as “I want to buy” or “how do I sell,” the bot can respond with relevant answers.
• To provide education. Some of your prospects will not be ready to buy when they visit your website but will be interested in learning more about your services. A chatbot can educate them on matters related to your team or your process to lead them along the buyer’s journey.
• To qualify buyers and sellers. Chatbots can make sure your prospects are in your target market, saving time for you and your potential client.
• To alert you in real time when you have a hot prospect. If you have a client ready to buy or sell, you want to know as soon as possible. Once your chatbot has qualified that a lead is ready to convert, it can notify you and loop you into the conversation so you can close the deal.
To use chatbots effectively in your luxury real estate advertising, you’ll need to select the right type of bot and work with a professional who provides real estate lead generation services and who can customize and manage the chatbot for you. One of the worst things you can do is use a chatbot that is not customized for your needs or that you don’t know how to monitor. Don’t make the mistake of thinking a chatbot can replace you or a member of your team when it comes to making a deal. A chatbot is only the first step in converting your leads into clients — so you need to know how to respond to the leads it generates.
