WhatsApp Real Estate Chatbot Use Cases for Better Conversion and Lower Costs

Real estate is one of the most critical components of the global economy, valued at $228 trillion at the end of 2016. Today that value is likely higher as the global real estate investment market saw a rise from $7.4 trillion in 2016 to $8.9 trillion in 2018. While this industry doesn't fall short on opportunities, real estate agents must fight hard for their place in the market and, therefore, find themselves in a constant battle for new qualified leads. And, it is in this battle, where a WhatsApp chatbot for real estate can become the secret weapon you've always hoped for.

You can request, with Landbot, access to the WhatsApp Business API.

Technology vs. Real Estate

There was a time when door-to-door prospection methods, newsletters, flyers and mass email blasts offered solid results. Some real estate agents might argue they still do... Sure, such an anomaly may appear in a small niche market. However, on a large scale, you won’t keep up with the competitors leveraging technological advances.

Frankly, you will see real estate companies using cutting-edge technology and the market doesn't lack innovating companies such as Buildium or Atlant. On the other hand, the way real estate agents manage relationships with potential clients and existing customers is still lagging behind. In the real estate industry, sales and support are built on speed and trust.

Therefore, many real estate agents are wary of automation and lead management. However, traditional communication channels such as email or phone calls are not sources of inspiration either.

Emails are not particularly fast, nor do they radiate a personal touch; crucial not only for qualifying but also connecting with a potential customer.

Phone calls, while personal, can be quite disruptive for both the customer and the real estate agent. Additionally, both channels are usually subject to normal 9-5 working hours and require the attention of a human agent. This is where chatbots for real estate agents come in...

Potential Benefits of Implementing a WhatsApp Real Estate Chatbot

Implementing a chatbot can bring quite a few benefits.

In fact, when it comes to the real estate sector, it can turn into a positive customer experience that serves different purposes from the top of the funnel all the way to a closed sale. Technological advances make chatbots quite easy to build and customize. Practically anyone can program them to handle routine tasks and leave time for more productive ones.

Speed up processes, answer questions or close sales. Chatbots in real estate can help with a wide range of objectives and resources. Some of the key benefits include:

• Instant response time
• 24/7 availability
• Multilingual service
• Increased efficiency and productivity
• Fewer lost leads
• Higher customer satisfaction (subject to instant responses and 24-hour availability)

How to Use WhatsApp for Real Estate?

You may be well-acquainted with chatbots but...

Why bother with WhatsApp? Wouldn't a Facebook Messenger or a website chatbot be just as effective? In fact, website chatbots can be quite useful, however, they depend on your customers and potential clients visiting your page. While it can be very effective as an initial contact, real estate prospects are unlikely to return to this web chatbot once they have started talking to your company.

Having a Facebook messaging chatbot provides more freedom than having a chatbot on your website. However, as the messaging app is linked to personal profiles, many aren't willing to use this platform for dealing with more complex business matters since the communication is not encrypted.

Using WhatsApp for real estate business can help you leverage the ultimate potential of automated conversation assistants. You can create a WhatsApp chatbot that answers any question at any time and any place.

Potential customers don't need to download new apps, visit a website or write an unreliable email to ask a simple question. Besides, writing to a specific phone number is a lot more personal than writing on a company Facebook page.

All of the above not only improves the customer experience but also presents considerable cost-saving opportunities.

Let’s see the variety of tasks that can be “delegated” to such a bot. To do this, I’ve elaborated a list of WhatsApp real estate chatbot use cases that can guide the customer from first contact.

1. Generate Leads (Buyers & Sellers)

Every business transaction starts with lead generation. Since real estate has high stakes and fierce competition, the ability to capture each lead effectively is key.

However, many real estate agents struggle to generate leads.

Why?

Well, once the novel digital lead generation strategies are used by all, they are no longer unique or affordable.

Another issue is that many real estate agents ignored the shift to the experience economy and instead of trying to provide value and build relationships, they try to go straight to business.

Automating lead generation via WhatsApp allows you to interact with potential customers offline or online. All instantly and efficiently collecting the necessary information (name, email, phone number) and when it suits the potential customer.

There are various ways to get potential customers to contact your business on WhatsApp through opt-in:

• Website CTA buttons and pop-ups
• Click-to-WhatsApp ads
• Email campaigns
• QR codes (on flyers, posters, print ads)

WhatsApp makes the first contact easy and accessible, which bodes well for the growing CX trends. Additionally, it facilitates creating a bot that offers value before getting to the business.

For example, the bot can offer descriptions of different neighborhoods or provide a quick overview of the city’s real estate market.

2. Qualify Leads (Buyers & Sellers)

The next step that comes after lead generation is lead qualification.

The WhatsApp chatbot in real estate can help you not only generate but also qualify leads in real time.

If the potential customer ends up talking to your bot, you know they are interested. What you need to do is identify at what point of the buyer/seller journey the lead is. If it turns out to be a qualified lead, you can dedicate the right follow up.

Maybe you’re specializing in selling certain types of properties. By asking simple questions, your chatbot can easily eliminate leads who would end up wasting your time. They could be looking for something you simply don’t sell.

Similarly, you can categorize leads based on where they are in their journey, their purchasing power, etc., allowing you to set priorities effectively.

What’s even better, your bot can react to the outcome of that qualification instantly. The most interesting and urgent leads can send a notification to your own phone. Others can be transferred to a corresponding human agent within the agency. And, in other cases, they are simply provided with useful material to help them advance on their buying/selling journey.

3. Answer Routine Questions

There isn’t a more obvious use case of chatbots in the universe than providing customer support. Real estate agents, like other professionals dealing with people, spend a lot of time always answering the same questions.

It’s natural for any qualified buyer or seller to ask these questions. After all, it’s not their job to be an expert in the field. That’s why they are looking for your help!. However, explaining the same things over and over is not only frustrating but also time-consuming.

Chatbots for real estate management can easily answer all FAQs before and after the property visit.

In doing so, it provides potential clients with immediate answers, and real estate agents with more time to dedicate to other tasks.

4. Manage Leads or Complex Questions Via a Human Agent

As mentioned, one of the magical abilities of the WhatsApp chatbot in real estate is allowing human agents to take over automated conversations when necessary.

You can offer your clients the possibility to request a conversation with a live agent. Or, you can also program the bot to react with human takeover in specific situations. For example, if it qualifies a high value lead or identifies a problem requiring immediate attention.

Another valuable aspect is a takeover via a human agent. That is, you can design this action to be sensitive to real-life situations.

For example, in cases when there are no agents available or it’s out of hours. On these occasions, the potential lead will be able to either schedule a meeting/call with an agent or the bot will indicate when the agent will be available.

5. Help Potential Customers Search for a Property

Another aspect of the buyer journey your WhatsApp real estate business chatbot can handle is helping prospects find properties more suitable to their needs and profile.

The robot can ask for more and more specifications such as location, size, price, etc., and use them to filter the viable properties. The lead can check them out and, if interested, proceed to arrange a phone call or even book a visit.

This way, you can provide a smooth and friction-free experience.

6. Offer Virtual Tours

If you are really keen to get ahead of the competition, chatbots for real estate can go a step further. Showing more than relevant listings and take potential clients to virtual tours. Just like the chatbot technology, VR is also becoming increasingly accessible, both in terms of technology and price.

Did you know that, according to Statista, the VR industry will be worth $29.7 billion in 2020?

VR is particularly valuable for the real estate industry because it helps accommodate foreign or long-distance prospects who can see properties from anywhere in the world. It also allows you to show unfinished spaces thus helping sell properties that are still under construction.

WhatsApp chatbots in real estate can save interested parties time by presenting them with a link to the virtual tour.

7. Present Properties for Sale

As highlighted above, the WhatsApp real estate chatbot is not only useful for helping buyers. It also significantly improves the seller experience. In addition to answering some FAQs, you can use a WhatsApp flow for sellers to submit materials and information in order to list and sell the property.

NoBorker, an online real estate company used WhatsApp to automate the property photo collection. By doing this they managed to:

• Reduce property photo upload time from 3 days to 6 minutes;
• Increase the annual ROI by 20 times through cost saving;
• Increase the number of properties rented or sold by 2.8 times..

8. Book Appointments

Then comes the appointment booking. Whether your potential clients have just seen the suggested listings by your bot or are texting about a particular property, a bot can easily schedule a visit immediately.

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Integrating the WhatsApp Business API with your calendar allows the bot to cross the requested date with your diary in real time. This way, you can organise a visit without risking double-booking. Also, using the same concept, you can show the potential customer the available time slots for the chosen date.

9. Confirm Visits

Sometimes, potential customers schedule the visits well in advance and forget about it. Other times something unexpected comes up and they forget to cancel...

To avoid your time being wasted, the WhatsApp API allows proactively sending HSM message templates to remind potential buyers about their visit.

WhatsApp for real estate agencies allows receiving a reminder on the mobile. Such an action is completed through an app they frequently use. They are also likely to have notifications activated, considerably increasing the chances of reading the reminder.

Additionally, as the response is so quick and easy, they are also more likely to warn you if they can’t come.

Tip: Make sure to frame your reminder message as a question to prompt prospective clients to respond YES or NO. For example: "You have booked a visit tomorrow at [time] at [address] with [agent name]. Can we expect you?"

10. Send Documentation

Sending documentation is a necessary step. However, it is usually also a completely unnecessary obstacle. It creates complications for both buyers and sellers.

WhatsApp’s end-to-end encrypted communication presents a great opportunity for real estate agents to streamline the collection of necessary documents. Instead of having to physically collect the materials, WhatsApp allows your clients to securely send you what you need in seconds.

11. Payment Reminders

Another great way to use the WhatsApp real estate chatbot is to automate any process while maintaining a human touch.

That includes payment reminders.

Whether it’s rent, service fees or any other, the mix of daily responsibilities makes it easy to forget or lose track of what needs to be paid. WhatsApp for real estate agents allows integrating the API with the financial system. To automatically send friendly reminders if something hasn’t been paid on time.

No need for annoying phone calls. You won’t waste time wondering if the client received the email or if it ended up in the spam folder.

12. Post-Sale Support

Last but not least, the WhatsApp real estate chatbot is an excellent tool to go the extra mile.

It allows offering exceptional service at a minimal cost. Once the sale has been closed, the new owners/tenants may have inquiries, questions or complaints. Maybe they are new to the area and want a recommendation for an interior designer or an electrician.

Perhaps they need help switching the owner for the electricity and water bills? Or maybe they need help finding the best local services? The list goes on...

A WhatsApp real estate chatbot addresses the vast majority of these topics in a friendly manner, in the safety of the client’s comfort zone.

You can choose between automating the entire service or sticking to the basics and allowing a human agent to deal with more complex queries.

The least your bot can do is identify the issue and refer the inquiry to a responsible person immediately. Thus avoiding the frustration of being passed from person to person and from one person.

In short, your WhatsApp Business API for real estate can handle the barrage of queries with ease, leaving your mind free to focus on more complex tasks.