Skype brings people face to face with their dream property
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Skype brings people face to face with their dream property
As written on blogs.skype.com
Everyone knows that Skype brings people together. But we recently found out that our technology also helps bring people closer to their dream properties. Coming face to face with your ideal property, whether it’s a family home or a shrewd investment, is something we all dream about. But what about falling in love with your dream condo over a video call?
We met up with Leighton Herdson, Senior Real Estate Broker from Essex, UK based company, Real Estate Worldwide.
Real Estate Worldwide was founded in 2012 with the emphasis on bringing investors and developers together with safe and secure off plan developments across the United Kingdom. And recently, the business has found that Skype is helping enhance and expand their client base, as Leighton explains:
“As a company we started using Skype early on as an easy way to communicate with anyone overseas or whilst being out of the office. I had used it a lot previously with friends in Canada and the U.S as a way to keep in touch.”
From hotel rooms to family homes, Real Estate Worldwide often deal with developers who build from scratch. So how does Skype help them sell something that doesn’t even exist? Leighton explains how the company uses, not just video calling, but file sharing and IM to share brochures and investments plans, as well as maintaining contact throughout the process:
“It is an easy way for us to share docs with each other, to communicate with overseas clients, and do viewings with clients that can’t get up to development sites. It has become a big part of our day.” Leighton continues, “we do this with developers when sending documents and if a developer is presenting a new project to us, they may screen share the brochure or website along with other important bits of info, floor plans and renderings etc.”
So do developers also use Skype?
“Not all the time, but everyone is embracing technology more and more. Skype does allow developers and project managers to show clients around developments without the client having to physically be there. There’s a lot of scope for developers to utilize technology like Skype more. Again it’s an easy way to maintain contact with the IM feature.”
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In the past, we’ve come across interior stylists and decorators who advise on color palette, décor themes and even feng shui tips while using Skype. Leighton tells us how their viewing process is also similar:
“We have developments all over the UK and some people simply can’t get from London to Manchester, for example. It’s a great way to show them the site and to meet the developer or project manager and get comfort that there is something tangible there.”
We realize that property is a very personal, “touchy feely” experience that often depends on a vibe or a gut instinct that a particular house or apartment is “the one”. We wanted to know if viewing a property over Skype actually felt as if you were there in person:
“Definitely, it helps show dimensions and gives a feel for the place when clients can’t physically attend. Skype makes the process a lot more personal and in a world where everyone is constantly getting marketing email and cold calls, if you can move a business relationship away from those mediums and on to Skype or face to face, then it builds longer lasting relationships.”
Any funny stories while you or a client have used video calling?
“My colleague Chris Britto used Skype to call a client at an agreed time and the client was in bed half asleep when he answered. He dealt with it well but was a bit surprised to say the least.”
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With Skype being a recent addition to Real Estate Worldwide’s business repertoire, we wondered what the company would do if our technology didn’t exist. Leighton rolls his eyes as he ponders the thought:
“In the past I’ve worked with people in Canada, the States and a lot from the UAE. Our clients are global and know that UK property is a great investment. But without Skype, we would have to do a lot more face to face meet ups and it would require people that haven’t got the time to travel from London up to Manchester, Liverpool or Sheffield.”
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Global association switches to cloud phone service to support flexibility, reduce costs
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Case Study: IPC
Global association switches to cloud phone service to support flexibility, reduce costs
As an industry association supported by member companies, IPC must operate in an efficient and cost-effective way. To lower global real estate costs, IPC encourages employees to work from home and decided to deploy Microsoft Office 365 to support this new model. IPC employees can use new features in Skype for Business Online to more easily work remotely and join meetings from anywhere, while IPC has reduced real estate costs by 60 percent and phone costs by US$10,000 a year.
New work model blocked by phones
Since 1957, IPC—Association Connecting Electronics Industries—has been guiding the electronic interconnection industry through dramatic changes. A global industry association dedicated to the competitive excellence and financial success of its more than 3,700 member companies, IPC represents all facets of the industry, including design, printed circuit board manufacturing, and electronics assembly and test.
IPC primarily guides the companies in the US$2 trillion global electronics industry in setting standards but also provides training, market research, and public policy advocacy. With global headquarters in Bannockburn, Illinois, IPC maintains 12 additional offices around the world and employs 150 people.
To operate as cost-effectively as possible, IPC set out to reduce its global office footprint and began encouraging employees to work from home. In its Bannockburn headquarters, the organization downsized a 24,000-square-foot space to an 8,000-square-foot space and moved to a hoteling model in which permanent offices were replaced with shared temporary spaces.
To make this model work, however, IPC needed a more flexible phone system that would allow employees to make and receive calls from home. The company’s existing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system did not work for many employees because their home Internet service providers blocked the calls. Employees resorted to using personal landline and cell phones, which was not optimal.
In 2014, to give employees easier, anywhere access to documents and to increase email messaging reliability, IPC replaced its on-premises email messaging system and desktop Microsoft Office licenses with Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity suite that includes familiar Office applications for email, document storage, document sharing, instant messaging, audio and video calls, and more.
While many daily work functions were now integrated and easier to use, phone calls and meetings were still outside of this unified experience. IPC used Citrix software for audio and video calls, which meant the company had additional desktop tools to learn and support. “One of the Citrix conferencing products limited meeting attendance to 25 people, so our employees that held standards meetings with our members would send out an invite to 50 people but warn them that only the first 25 people could join,” says Habib Bilfaqi, Network Manager at IPC.
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“Skype for Business Online is really helping us downsize our global real estate needs.”
Habib Bilfaqui, IPC, Network Manager
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Bigger, more streamlined meetings
In late 2015, IPC upgraded to a premium version of Skype for Business Online (part of Office 365) that helped address all of these problems and others. IPC uses Skype for Business Cloud PBX to provide software-based private branch exchange (PBX) functionality. It uses PSTN Calling to provide employees with a primary phone number in Skype for Business Online for VoIP calls and PSTN Conferencing to let employees join a Skype for Business Online meeting by dialing in over a landline or mobile phone.
Bilfaqi offered classes to teach employees about the new features, but migration from the Citrix products to Skype for Business Online was quick and painless. “We rely heavily on PSTN Conferencing, which is easier to use and accommodates more meeting attendees than other meeting solutions,” Bilfaqi says.
With PSTN Conferencing, IPC employees can host meetings with up to 250 attendees and share content with all. Plus, the meeting organizer does not have to be on the call to start the meeting but can authorize another attendee to start the meeting. “We no longer have to paste call-in numbers into our Skype for Business Online invites, and it makes us look far more professional to our members to not have to cap meeting attendance,” Bilfaqi says. “We also don’t have to worry about costs; we pay a flat fee for unlimited domestic meeting minutes.”
Helpful phone features
By using PSTN Calling, IPC has been able to simplify internal calls. Previously, every employee had a four-digit extension used to call one another internally. However, these extensions were hard to remember. Today, employees simply find a colleague’s name in their Outlook address book or start typing the name and have Outlook find the person. “With PSTN Calling, we don’t have to distribute phone lists anymore, and the call quality is amazing,” Bilfaqi says.
IPC uses another PSTN Calling feature to speed and track help-desk response. It has put all help-desk team members in a Skype for Business team-call group, which is a team of people who answer the same calls. When a team member picks up the phone, the other phones stop ringing and all team members are notified who picked up the call. “It’s really helpful to know not only that someone picked up the call but who picked it up,” Bilfaqi says.
Remote flexibility that finally works
By switching to Skype for Business Online for voice and meetings, IPC has finally been able to move ahead on its “work from home” policy. In fact, all 100 US staff members now work from home at least two days a week.
Skype for Business Cloud PBX has a unique communications port that helped IPC employees overcome the port-blocking issues with previous VoIP solutions that hampered work-from-home efforts. “Skype for Business Online is really helping us downsize our global real-estate needs by around 60 percent,” says Bilfaqi.
Bilfaqi estimates that IPC will net an additional $10,000 a year by eliminating Citrix licensing, its old phone system, phone lines, and phone system maintenance costs. “As an industry organization, it’s important that we demonstrate fiscal responsibility to our members,” Bilfaqi says. “By using Skype for Business Online, we are working more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before.”
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Monthly Billing Revolutionizes Microsoft Licensing: Real Estate Agents are Taking Advantage of the New Purchasing Portal
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New Self-Serve Portal Offers Huge Microsoft Licensing Discounts
Only offered by Tier 1 CSPs
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Real estate agents using cloud computing are saving money on overhead, providing the latest technology advances for their staff, and increasing productivity.
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Through our Cloud Solution Provider Portal you could sign up for a NEW Office 365 account and begin purchasing Microsoft Cloud Licensing solutions that fit your business (no minimum user counts).
1. Allow your agents to work remotely cutting the square footage needed in a physical office, saving you money
2. Get rid of landline phones, paper and multiple printers by utilizing online document storage and internet based communication solutions
3. Spend more money and time on marketing and lead generation increasing your ROI
4. Attract and recruit more agents efficiently and effectively
5. Reduce operating expenses related to office staff, increasing your bottom line
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Three proven digital marketing tactics that work for real estate agents and brokers, much like they do for businesses of all kinds.
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Three Digital Marketing Tactics That Work for Real Estate
There is no doubt that digital marketing is what everyone in business is talking about these days. It’s no different in the real estate industry. According to Borrell Associates Inc.’s 2015 Outlook for Real Esate Advertising, real estate agents and brokers are now spending over $13 billion on all forms of advertising, a whopping 75% of that amount is going towards online and digital advertising.
However, the percentage of ad spend devoted to digital marketing is predicted to slow down and possibly even drop in 2015. It’s possible that, according to Borrell’s report, that an optimal ratio has been reached. It also suggests that real estate advertisers may be moving their resources elsewhere.
Certainly, digital marketing is a great way to generate interest and leads. However, much like in other industries, real estate advertisers are throwing lots of budget at obtaining leads, whether it’s through social media, pay per click ads, display advertising, AdWords, YouTube, Facebook ads, and on and on. The focus seems to be on generating massive amounts of leads with little thought given to whether they are qualified and even less thought given to the most important point of all – how many of those leads will ultimately convert to clients.
With this in mind, here are three proven digital marketing tactics that work for real estate agents and brokers, much like they do for businesses of all kinds.
1. Effectively Manage Your Relationships
Digital marketing has grown in popularity because of its ability to help you reach a massive audience in a fast, cost-effective way. Websites, blogs, social media, and videos are designed to help reach more people, and people will find you. But what is an astounding issue in real estate is what happens next. Consider these contrasting, and extremely worrisome, statistics:
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The REAL Trends 2013 Online Performance Study found that 45% of consumers expect a response from a website within 15 minutes and 56% expect a response from their real estate agent within 30 minutes of contact.
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Contrast that with the statistic that 45% of inquiries on real estate websites never receive a response.
What is happening here? Immediate response to your customers is critical. Utilizing a powerful communication and productivity tool such as Office 365 with Outlook will put you ahead of the competition according to these statistics. Real estate is still a people business and people expect to be contacted as soon as possible. Office 365’s mobile experience is unparalleled, and gives agents the tools they need while on the road. See how one top producer manages his emails from the road utilizing Office 365. >>>
2. Use a CRM System to Manage Your Leads
Staying in touch with the right people at the right time is more than just replying to their inquiries. Generating leads is definitely something that you need to do. Maintaining a healthy, active pipeline of leads is the lifeblood of any business. However, it’s critical that you use a contact/customer relationship management (CRM) platform, such as Microsoft Dynamics, to help you store, track, and qualify your lead database for effective communication and management of your prospects. This will help you sift through your leads to find the qualified prospects and work towards converting them to clients. Email marketing campaigns to your qualified leads is still the most effective digital marketing you can do. It’s even more powerful when the emails are targeted with relevant content. For example, you may have clients who are only interested in investment properties or multi-family units. Having this information stored in your CRM system will help you build target email marketing campaigns that deliver above average response. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online integrates seamlessly with Office 365 and Outlook to give you a powerful digital marketing platform that will help you convert leads to prospects and prospects to clients. Take a tour of Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions and find one that’s right for your business. >>>
3. Stay in touch frequently and utilize dynamic content
Now that you are ready to start your email marketing campaigns and manage them through a CRM platform, the next crucial step is to make sure you’re sending relevant and engaging content to your prospect database. Don’t send the same tired emails asking people if they’re ready to buy or sell. Get them excited about your listings. Motivate them to seek out the home of their dreams. Emails need more than text, they need powerful visuals. One powerful tool that lets you create impactful, media rich content is Microsoft Sway. With Sway, you can create and share attention-grabbing digital stories with text, images, and video to showcase your services and properties to prospective clients looking to buy or sell. These digital presentations can be made quickly and deployed on demand to target specific customers or to your entire database. Forget about paper flyers, and stop sending the same boring emails – stand apart from all your competitors by sending fresh, exciting content via your Sways! See a sample listing Sway below >>>
Digital marketing doesn’t have to be an expensive crapshoot. By sticking to the tried and true tactics and being smart about the tools that you use, you’ll be on your way to converting more of your leads into valuable customers. To learn more about the Microsoft solutions presented in this article, contact Managed Solution to see how easy, quick and cost-effective it is to get started.
Contact Us & See How Today’s Technology is Shaping the Real Estate Industry of Tomorrow 800-293-6593
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Three #Tech Trends that Will Transform Real Estate
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Three #Tech Trends that Will Transform Real Estate
Technological innovation is radically changing how and where we choose to work, live and play, essentially forcing us to rethink the built environment—and our place in it.
From broad access to WiFi and the ubiquity of smartphones to ever-lighter laptops and more powerful tablet devices, technology has created an inextricably connected world. With the virtual barrier between work and home all but gone, the way we think about real estate is fundamentally changing, says Elie Finegold, senior vice president of global innovation and business intelligence at CBRE.
“This industrial-era concept that there is a separation between work and home is becoming increasingly less relevant,” says Finegold. “Because you can work from anywhere, space has become more fungible.”
Finegold, an innovator and entrepreneur with expertise in real estate and technology, says there are three emerging trends reshaping the way people will use real estate in the future.
1. Radical mobility
The ability of people and machines to work from anywhere is transforming the utilization of traditional spaces. “If you conduct a survey and ask people, ‘Have you worked in a living room, a bedroom, a plane, an office, an elevator, somebody else’s house—even a bathroom?’ everyone is going to answer yes to almost every one of them,” Finegold says.
“There’s a whole set of tasks that were once capable of only being done in an office that we can now do from anywhere, and though working face-to-face with others will likely never become obsolete, companies are going to be looking for much more adaptable real estate frameworks as a way of managing both flex in the workforce and the diversity of working habits,” he adds.
By 2020, 40 percent of workers in the U.S. will be self-employed as freelancers, contractors or temp employees, which will further affect the role—and primacy—of traditional office space, says Finegold.
2. Collaborative economy
As people increasingly choose to share and crowdsource goods, services, funding and transportation, the real estate market must adapt to new ways of distributing demands, Finegold says.
The sharing economy created affordable solutions for consumers during the Great Recession and has offered unique income streams for people who need extra cash or more flexible work situations. For instance, Airbnb and Uber have enabled people to turn their homes and vehicles into sources of income.
As people migrate to cities, they may prefer to rent apartments or cars rather than own them. Similarly, if more people are going into business for themselves as freelancers or contractors, the demand for coworking spaces could outweigh the need for traditional office space.
3. Transportation revolution
The rise of autonomous vehicles and transportation—self-driving cars, multi-modal trucking, distribution drones, etc.—coupled with collaborative models like Uber, will make it easier for people and goods to move around more freely. It may also ultimately change infrastructure needs, Finegold says, cutting down on the number of cars on the road or in parking lots at any given moment, while simultaneously creating a competitive market for space utilization.
“There will be huge opportunities for redevelopment of spaces previously used for personal vehicles, from streetside parking spots to multilevel parking decks,” Finegold says.
While some of these trends may be in the distant future, aspects of all three already exist, and they are quickly creating new modes for people to access real estate, Finegold says.
“If you take all of these things together, they are breaking down traditional work/life balances and changing the real estate landscape,” Finegold says. “Companies are attracted to places where there are live/work opportunities for employees.”
Source: blueprint.cbre.com
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Contact Us & See How Today’s Technology is Shaping the Real Estate Industry of Tomorrow 800-293-6593
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Why Are Realtors Using Surface Devices?
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With the competitiveness of the real estate industry, agents need to utilize current technology to give them a strategic edge. Real estate agents are constantly on the go showing properties and meeting with clients, so they need a reliable device that offers unified communications and messaging to keep everyone up to date. Why Are Realtors Using Surface Devices? Surface Pro 3 is a lightweight, versatile device that helps facilitate productive face-to-face conversations to address customer needs and cement new relationships. This device helps realtors deepen customer loyalty by providing features and tools that serve their customers in a timely and personal way.
The Surface Pro has been said to be one of the most productive devices for realtors. It brings together the best of the tablet and laptop while providing portable, fast, full HD display. Some realtors who have already adopted to Surface Pro said they loved Surface, as they realized they no longer needed their heavy laptops and their lighter but limited iPads.
10 Reasons Realtors Are Using Surface Devices
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Portability helps agents be productive anywhere by easily converting from a laptop to tablet when it’s time to head to a meeting or listing.
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Long and powerful battery life is reassuring for agents because they could work remotely longer without having to plug-in.
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Agents are able to pull up data instantly and effortlessly with Instant-on functionality. This makes it easier when researching property records and listings.
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Agents can open multiple documents side by side to show clients different listings or compare market analysis.
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Agents stay organized by using the pen to mark-up property listings and photos with drawings and notes. One click of your Pen opens OneNote3 so you can capture and sync your notes and doodles effortlessly.
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The Surface Pen is highly responsive and lets you write, draw, and sketch on a pressure-sensitive display. Agents utilize this feature when discussing goals with clients and could provide an interactive experience.
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Agents can be creative by utilizing the design apps to produce appealing property photos and listings.
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Agents can show information to clients anywhere for better customer acquisition and retention.
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Agents can Print or add storage with USB port and even collect signatures directly from the screen.
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Agents can keep clients satisfied by using cutting edge technology and a personalized experience so they’ll keep using you again and again.
Managed Solution has years of experience deploying and implementing Microsoft technologies as a Microsoft Gold Partner. We work hand in hand with Microsoft to provide our clients with the most up-to-date technology solutions that drive innovation, productivity, and increased revenue.
Not only is Managed Solution proud to be a Microsoft Gold Partner, but also a digital adviser for real estate industries. For more information on real estate workflow solutions contact Managed Solution at 800-550-3795.
Contact Us & See How Today’s Technology is Shaping the Real Estate Industry of Tomorrow 800-293-6593
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