|
Challenge
How can real estate brokerages increase productivity, gain a competitive edge, strengthen client relationships and build their business?
Solution
Free up valuable time for more productive tasks, attract new clients and increase client satisfaction by implementing the RELAY® transaction management system.
Benefit
The REALTOR®-owned RELAY® Internet transaction tool provides real estate broker/owners with the security of knowing that each step in the transaction process is “under control.” RELAY® is easy to implement and use, providing seamless integration with ZipForm®Online or WINFormsOnline™. It eliminates time-wasting steps, redundant paperwork, missed steps that might delay a closing and lost transaction files. Most important, it increases customer satisfaction and improves broker and agent productivity.
A small town like Oroville, California isn’t the first place one might normally look for signs of business technology innovation. Founded as a supply outpost for miners during the California Gold Rush (“oro” means “gold” in Spanish), Oroville (area pop. 50,000) relies on agriculture and small retail and service establishments to fuel its economy.
By the same token, there aren’t many outward signs that Oroville-based RE/MAX Altima Realty is different from any other mid-sized, small-town real estate office. Most of its agents grew up in the area, where a three-bedroom house can still be had for under $300,000. The office has the standard-issue office equipment: A copier, a couple of desktop computers, fax machines and a scanner. “We don’t have a transaction coordinator. In fact, we don’t even have a secretary,” Broker/Owner Julie Miller chuckles. “If you want to make a copy, you have to do it yourself.”
Nevertheless, Miller and her team have proved you don’t have to be in the Silicon Valley to pioneer new technologies and business processes. RE/MAX Altima Realty was the first real estate brokerage in the country to implement the RELAY® transaction management system, a Web-based suite of easy-to-use tools designed to help REALTORS® grow their business by streamlining the processes and paperwork required to successfully complete a real estate transaction.
Miller’s experience has been so positive that the Oroville Association of REALTORS® recently voted to implement the REALTOR®-owned RELAY® Internet transaction tool across its entire membership, bringing its benefits to every broker/owner, agent and the home-buying and selling public.
The Challenge: Digging Out from Under a Mountain of Paperwork
Before RELAY®, most days found Julie Miller chained to a desk scanning contracts, inspection reports and other transaction paperwork – a tedious, time-consuming, thankless-albeit-necessary role for most brokers. Like many fellow broker/owners who themselves actively work with buyers and sellers, Miller would rather have been out in the field serving her clients.
But that would have required her to ignore an inbox stacked a foot high with files requiring her experienced eye – and her initials on a cover sheet inside the file jacket. “Each of my agents work with five to 10 clients at a time, so I typically had as many as 400 or 500 files on my desk for review,” Miller winces. “I’m one of those brokers who want to know all the details. I need to see the agency disclosure, the seller’s advisory, the seller’s contract – everything. I don’t put my initials next to a task until I’ve checked to make sure everything is in order.”
Once reviewed, the new file was placed in a drawer for new listings. Later, when an offer was received, the agent pulled the file from the drawer, inserted the forms to be reviewed and placed it back in the inbox. “I would open the file and see there were three new forms I hadn’t reviewed because my initials weren’t next to them on the cover sheet,” says Miller. “Then, once I signed off, I’d put the file in the inspection drawer.” This process of filing and re-filing continued at regular intervals.
It’s a scene oft repeated, with minor alterations, in thousands of real estate offices around the country. Unnecessarily so, as Miller and her agents learned.
The Solution: RELAY® Makes Transaction Management a Breeze
In late 2004, Julie Miller heard about the RELAY® Internet transaction tool, which gives brokers and sales associates (and, if the agent chooses, personal assistants, transaction coordinators, cooperating agents and clients) online access to relevant transaction files – any time and from anywhere they have access to a personal computer and an Internet connection.
For the agents at RE/MAX Altima Realty, that means no more unnecessary and (with higher gas prices) expensive trips back to the office to drop off a file for Miller’s review. Instead, agents can submit forms electronically, allowing them to spend more time in the field meeting the needs of clients. For Miller, it means greater control over transaction file review. Most important, its digital file storage system eliminates the need for bulky filing cabinets and warehouses full of Banker’s Boxes. The days of lost or misplaced files are gone.
“It used to be that if a client walked in the door a year and a half after the transaction closed and asked for a copy of an inspection report, my agents had to get the key to the storage unit and go through box after box of files until they found the right one,” says Miller. “That could take a couple of days, assuming they could find it at all. Now, all they have to do is pull it up on the computer and print it out.” Even better, with RELAY® agents can present their clients with a CD-ROM containing a full set of documents at the end of the transaction. “It’s a great client satisfaction and retention tool.”
Despite the obvious benefits, Miller knew that real estate agents are slow to change and wary of new technologies. So she decided to implement RELAY® in stages, beginning in September 2005.
The first step was to ask her agents to create and submit new client transaction files electronically. That was as easy as signing in online, creating a file name and populating the transaction file with electronic copies of transaction documents. RELAY® automatically synchronizes with the online versions of ZipForm® and WinForms™, allowing agents to import those documents to the new file with the click of a mouse. Contracts and other paperwork that exist only in paper form can be scanned in or faxed. When a form enters the system, it is time- and date-stamped, creating an immutable record.
Simultaneously, Miller receives an email notifying her that a new file has been created and there are items in it for her review. All she has to do is log in, open the file, and click her approval. The system automatically notifies the agent that the review is completed, allowing them to move to the next step in the transaction.
The beauty of the RELAY® Internet transaction tool is that both Miller and her agents can access its features from any computer, any time day or night, and from a home office, mobile computer or coffee shop with wireless access.
“I’m literally cutting my time in half in terms of reviewing these files,” says Miller. “One click takes me right to the form that just came in. There’s no guesswork involved.”
Miller adds that RELAY® is a broker’s dream as a risk management tool. That’s because users can customize it to alert them about important next steps or transaction deadlines. “RELAY® helps prevent some of the common problems all of us face,” Miller notes. “As a broker, I don’t want to catch a problem the day before closing: I want to catch it before it becomes a problem.”
And Miller also doesn’t have to worry about data security. RELAY® has earned the REALTOR® Secure designation and been declared compliant by Cybertrust, the global information security specialists.
By the end of 2005, Miller’s agents had the new file creation and review process down. But that was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ways RELAY® has improved the way she and her agents conduct their business.
Its All About Customer Satisfaction
Like homework-eating dogs, fax machines that mysteriously consume paperwork are the bane of every real estate professional’s existence. The days of faxes lost in transit or misplaced by the client no longer exist with RELAY®.
“With RELAY®, I can complete an entire transaction without faxing a single document,” says Miller. That’s because the system allows her to designate which documents to send to a client for review, signature, or further action via email or direct access to the RELAY® program.
What’s more, RELAY® allows REALTORS® to gauge client satisfaction throughout the transaction. “RELAY® automatically sends out a questionnaire to clients to find out how they feel things are going,” says Miller. “It’s a great tool for agents, because they get immediate feedback and can act to fix things fast if there is a problem.”
Miller currently is testing digital signatures and paperless transactions. “By golly, I really like it, so I may be running a totally paperless transaction a lot sooner than I think,” she laughs. “It’s just like anything else: I hated learning to use my PDA, but now I can’t live without it.”
Miller has become a true evangelist for RELAY® and expects others to follow suit as they adopt the system.
“REALTORS® who try this are just going to be blown away because it makes their jobs so much easier and helps them gain rapport with their clients. It’s an unbelievable tool!”
Clients love RELAY®.
“Everyone has been just ecstatic,” Miller reports. “I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal for clients, but they were nuts over it. They specifically commented that they felt more in control of the transaction because they knew what was going on at all times – which is exactly what consumers have been saying they want from their REALTOR®.”
Summary
REALTOR®-owned RELAY® Version 3.0 Internet transaction management system: Available to real estate agents and brokers nationwide for an introductory annual subscription price of $149. For more information on features and benefits of RELAY® online real estate transactions, visit www.rebt.com or call 866-736-REBT.
# # #
|
Home
