According to JLL, while about 40 percent of CRE departments have CRM programs in place, “only 9 percent of formal CRE CRM programs are considered by their participants to be ‘very strong.’”
Because of the nature of the CRE industry being driven by the personal expertise of individual brokers—there’s been some pushback on the idea of shared databases. The CRMs currently available, which were originally designed for other industries, just aren’t suitable for the way CRE actually works. But with the right features, a CRE-focused database could take the entire industry to the next level, allowing brokers to do much more than they can with just a spreadsheet.
In Buildout and theBrokerList’s 2018 DNA of #CRE Broker Survey, we asked what tool or technology is missing from the CRE landscape that would help brokers with their jobs. Many respondents told us they would like to have a CRM that is specifically designed for the industry, easily integrated with other tools, and simple to use.
Here’s what brokers are currently missing from available CRMs:
Brokers spend their careers accumulating their knowledge and data about their own industry niches, whether that’s suburban retail, downtown offices, or something else.
An ideal CRM or database for CRE would feature elegant security settings that both protect an individual broker’s data and make crucial information available to managing directors or administrators. This dynamic database would house a broker’s own completely private data—visible only to them, data they share with their team, and data they share with managing directors or a brokerage owner.
The ideal database would connect to marketing and commissions tools to allow for a seamless, secure property transaction process, providing brokers with one simple platform to do their entire jobs. Brokers could then use one tool to research, prospect, create a call list, and develop a proposal, market a listing, and get paid out all in one place.
Connection to marketing would save brokers and their teams time creating promotional materials for their properties, and give them the ability to analyze metrics and gather leads. When brokers can zero in on their hottest leads using that marketing data, they can then use their time more wisely—and even accurately track their transaction pipeline to forecast revenue. Plus, keeping track of data on past deals in a dynamic, integrated database could make it possible to seamlessly compile comps for future listings.
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