If you are like most estate agents, you spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds each month promoting your branch on Rightmove, Zoopla and other property portals. Getting that spend to pay back is the whole argument behind running WhatsApp as an agency channel.
The majority of estate agents report response rates from these leads of 20 to 30%, which indicates that these leads often generate just enough value to cover their cost. If you could achieve a response rate closer to 70% instead of 20 to 30%, think about how much more profitable your Rightmove membership would be.
Here are three things you can do to significantly raise your response rate if you regularly receive response rates of 20 to 30%:
If they respond at all, estate agents typically respond to web leads within 48 hours. Surprisingly, about 40% of online leads do not receive any sort of response.
You gain from being top of mind when you reply to leads as soon as they contact you. The leads are pleased that you reached out to them so quickly and are keen on locating a property. According to research, the estate agent who contacts the buyer first has the best chance of closing the deal.
Hitting that speed at every hour of the day takes automation rather than effort, and the mechanics of setting it up are in our guide to responding to Rightmove leads faster with WhatsApp automation.
According to Rightmove, visitors on mobile devices account for the large majority of time spent on the website, and millions of users have downloaded its Android and iPhone apps.
Data from our estate agency clients reveals a discernible increase in internet enquiries during lunchtime, in the evenings on workdays, and at weekends.
Combining these two ideas shows that, when you are not in the office, the bulk of internet leads will come from a mobile device.
The likelihood of getting a high response rate from contacting the lead by phone or email the day after they submit their enquiry is extremely low. You must contact your leads on a device they are already using, and at a time when their property search is top of mind, if you want a high response rate.
Many estate agents also make the error of replying in an impersonal manner in addition to being sluggish to react and using the wrong medium. We observed that 6% of estate agents use an auto-responder to reply to consumer leads but never follow up. Another 9% of responses invite users to subscribe to a mailing list, which lowers lead conversions and can put leads off. Lastly, a remarkable 23% of agencies sent email responses with enormous attachments, some as large as 50MB.
Given how difficult estate agents make it for leads to even reply, it is hardly a surprise that response rates for online leads are so low. What the enquirer experiences in those first few minutes decides most of it, which we look at in more depth in competing on experience rather than speed alone.
Mention the lead's name and the details of the particular property they enquired about.
To demonstrate that you are advocating for them, ask them questions. The objective is to elicit the first answer, which can be achieved by asking a basic question like when they would like to view the property, or by using the question as a lead pre-qualification tool.
Have a discussion. When the lead answers with enquiries of their own, acknowledge them even if you are unable to provide an instant response, and let the lead know you are working on it.
Be there for them when they need you. It happens frequently that leads will reply hours, days, or even weeks after the first chat has ended. They often need to make a last-minute alteration or have more queries. Give them a prompt response, possibly bringing up something that was discussed earlier, and assure them that their needs are being met. Keeping that history in one place across the branch is what centralising WhatsApp for estate and letting agents is really for.
One of two categories best describes many estate agencies. If a lead does not answer, either the agent will not contact them again, or they will add them to a database and send daily emails about properties they have shown no interest in. Neither of these strategies encourages high response rates.
In a small but considerable number of cases, one or more follow-ups are necessary before a lead responds to an initial approach. You can increase your response rates further by following the steps above, using timely and personalised messaging alongside rapid, conversational responses.
The number of leads that convert to clients will increase whether your agency receives 10 leads per month or 200.
Stitch has a feature within our WhatsApp solution called Lead2WhatsApp, which sends a bespoke message from your agency to your portal email leads in WhatsApp. Across our own client data we engage 71% of leads from property portals, with an average response time of 59 seconds. Those two figures are drawn from Stitch deployments rather than from independent research.
If you would like the same calculation run against your own portal spend, book a short demo.
