SPECIAL FEATURE: Why software is the key to unlocking efficiencies for agents – Zoopla

Simon Woodward, Director of Product at Zoopla, has written a special feature on why software is the key to unlocking efficiencies for agents.

One thing that’s evident from the many meetings I’ve had since heading up the product team at Alto is that for most agents, their people are their greatest asset. Agents are at their most effective when they are drumming up business, building a rapport with clients, conducting valuations and winning instructions – yet too often I hear that administrative tasks take up a large portion of this valuable time.

Software plays a key role in easing this burden, which is why at Zoopla we’ve significantly invested in our software solution – Alto – to create the next generation of functionality.

But what are the tangible benefits for agents who decide to invest in software to run their business?

Streamline communication

Estate agencies are often complex businesses with different teams contributing to successful transactions: property managers and client accounts bookkeepers; valuers, negotiators and progressors. Each team often has its own system which can make it challenging to have a single source of truth. Software solutions like Alto create a single system of record for the state of all agency activities, and even manage diaries across multiple offices.

Having the correct software can take the hassle out of communication between internal teams and ensure everyone has visibility over key milestones. For example, Alto can be used to prioritise tasks for your entire agency using the events organiser feature in the dashboard, and ensure your agents never miss a property inspection or compliance check again.

You can also leverage your software to easily track maintenance jobs with real-time updates from start to finish and easily export work orders information to Excel or other formats for stress-free reporting.

Gain data driven insights

Making the most of your software can enable your business to leverage key insights and trends to drive data-driven decisions. For example, Alto’s reporting system, which we’re continuously enhancing, will provide up to the minute data about business performance, as well as analysis on under-offer properties.

These insights can also be used to optimise your marketing mix and ensure it’s delivering maximum return on investment. Encourage your staff to use software to identify which clients are and aren’t engaging with emails, and give your customers more relevant property match results.

Agents can also build groups of customers based on search criteria and use Alto’s user-friendly email templates to drag and drop images, videos and buttons into everyday emails to create content that will engage your customers.

Save time

Feedback from our customers shows that spending time to install the right software pays dividends later on in terms of driving efficiencies. Payments, reconciliations and uploading receipts can be time-consuming and the right software takes away the hassle, freeing up time for agents to focus on more important tasks.

With time-saving being front of mind for many agents, it comes as no surprise that one of our most requested features from customers was the ability to share documents with tenants digitally.

This has directly informed the release of our latest feature, tenant document sharing which provides a single storage solution for both agents and tenants for deposit information, references and other key documents like right to rent guides which can then be accessed by tenants via a tenant portal at their leisure – not only saving time for agents, but also providing a better customer experience as a result.

This will also enable agents to provide a more seamless professional experience on Alto’s PropertyFile tenant portal, instead of attaching documents to e-signing requests.

Correctly using your software to the best of its capabilities can also allow you to automate viewing and market appraisal feedback, save time chasing up prospective buyers and applicants and use email templates to reach out to customers.

To find out more about Alto’s latest enhancements and preview what’s coming down the track, agents can visit Alto’s new hub Alto Agenda, which contains information on new features and updated functionality.