One of the great things about working with a team of other real estate professionals in a brokerage or firm is that you have a ton of real estate tools at your fingertips such as conferences and in-house assistants. One of those resources is often contact management software, designed by the brokerage and used within house. Many firms have them and while they do have certain advantages, they also have their own drawbacks that you need to be aware of.

The biggest challenge with using brokerage-specific software is that once you leave that brokerage, you’ll also leave all of your contacts behind. You may be able to copy them all onto a hard disk before you go, but when things are in transit, things like your contact database can be forgotten. And when changing offices, who has the time to be backing up more files than you need to?

Real estate CRM software like Wise Agent gives you back that control, and frees up your time too. Because all of your information is stored online anyway, and you can access it at any time with just your name and password, you never have to worry about backing up files, or leaving all of your most precious contacts behind.

Building and creating a strong network of contacts takes time in the real estate industry, and is the backbone of any realtor. Use Wise Agent and take back control of your contacts wherever you go, whatever office you’re in.

RE Technology recently featured a post on this very topic as well, you can find it here.

As 2011 winds down, we all begin thinking about how we’re going to make 2012 even better! One great idea is to get your database organized so that you’re ready to fly once the New Year rolls around. Here are some tips to prepare for a prosperous 2012:

Combine your Contact Lists. Having databases in several places makes it hard to keep in touch. Our Support Team is standing by to help you import this data to your Wise Agent account so that all your contacts are in a central location.

Rank your Clients. This year Wise Agent added a new ranking feature that allows you to designate your contacts as A, B, C, D, or F Clients. Go through your client list and select their rank. This will help you in the future to pull up those clients that are sending you the most business, as well as those that you might want to concentrate on a little more.

Fill in the blanks. From the Client List page, click on the Advanced Search link. There you will find the Search Groups option, where you can search for clients that have no email address, no phone number, or no address. Search for the missing information online or better yet, contact the person to obtain it. Having a complete contact record means you can contact them whatever way you choose – whether it be by phone, email, or snail mail.

Get the full story. Wise Agent has integrated with multiple social media platforms to help you get the full story, all on one page. Take a few moments to attach your clients’ Facebook, twitter, Klout, and blog to their Client Summary page. This will help you to build better relationships with those who support your business.

We wish you a happy, healthy, and successful New Year! If you need any help, don’t hesitate to hit the Contact Us button – our support is here for you 24/7, even over the holidays.

Listings-to-Leads is a powerful lead generation tool which is integrated right into your Wise Agent account.  When you receive a new lead through the Listings-to-Leads portal, it will be automatically added to your Wise Agent:

• As a new contact in your Client List
• Under the “L2L” category that is automatically created
• As a new call on your Call List

Now that the lead is in your Wise Agent account, you are able to easily start them on a drip campaign, track your communications with the Contact Notes, and build your relationship.  Watch the video below for step-by-step instructions on how to get started!

Have you noticed anything new on your Wise Agent lately? We have been busy adding lots of your suggestions and we just went live with yet another one!  On your client summary page you will now see the little orange RSS symbol under your client’s photo, next to the twitter and Facebook icons. When clicked, it will pull their last four blog posts.

You are now able to see a full story on your client summary page that includes all of your contact’s information: notes, Facebook status, last three tweets, last four blog posts, Rank, and Klout score.  It is all pulled together in a nice clean interface for you to view in Wise Agent.

If you would like a quick 10 minute demo to see the new features live just click the “Contact Us” button.

With the recent updates to the Client Summary pages, we have been getting a lot of positive feedback and questions.  One of the more common questions is “What is rank?” In case you missed it, under the clients’ photo there is a green arrow, and when you click it, you can select a rank for that client – A, B, C, D, or F.  So why would you want to rank your clients?  It’s all about working WISER and maximizing your time.

The top real estate coaches around the country have been talking a lot recently about the importance of ranking clients in your database.  As a real estate professional, your database IS your business, and keeping in touch with your contacts is a crucial aspect of being successful at what you do.  That is, after all, why you need a CRM like Wise Agent in first place, isn’t it?

For example let’s say this year you plan on taking one client to lunch each month.  How do you decide who to call?  It’s important you have a way to quickly identify those contacts that would be the best of use of your valuable time.   Here’s is our suggestion on how you may choose to rank your clients.

A: Clients that have used your services multiple times in the past, and refer others to you.
B: Clients that have used your services but haven’t given you any referrals yet.
C: Clients that have used your services in the past or you believe will do business with you in the future, but also do some business with your competition.
D: Prospects and leads that may do business with you in the future.
F: Contacts that you do not want to work with but keep in your database to remember the details.

Ranking your clients will help you determine how to best spend your marketing time and budget.  It’s another way we are updating Wise Agent to make it even better for our members based on your suggestions.  If you have a suggestion, we’d love to hear it!  Hit the Contact Us button and let us know.

WiseAgent has Klout! We also have added Rank to allow you to track your clients influence and value, right from their client summary page.

Klout allows you to see a client’s true reach and referral value in the social media arena. How influential are they? Are they likely to share a good service experience?

Rank allows you to grade your overall experience with a client. A, B, C, D, or F; it’s that simple.

Take a minute to get to know these two features on the new WiseAgent client summary page layout. You can find the scores, or the prompt to add a score just beneath your client’s photo.

To connect WiseAgent with the client’s Klout score -
1. Click on “Edit Client” from the Client Summary page.
2. Under the main email address, click “add email”.
3. In the space to the left of the blue drop down arrow, type in “twitter” as a custom field name.
4. Enter your client’s twitter ID in the field to the right of that (without the @ symbol) and click “add”.
5. Click “save” on the Edit Client page.
6. You will be redirected to the Client Summary page, again, and the client’s Klout score will appear under their image.