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If you run a real estate agency, it can be overwhelming to work with home buyers and sellers, follow up with leads, schedule viewings, and close sales.

How can you stay on top of your work?

One of the tools that could save you time and make your work easier is a chatbot. More specifically, a WhatsApp chatbot.

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What’s a real estate WhatsApp chatbot? #

A WhatsApp chatbot is a computer software that simulates human conversation on WhatsApp without human intervention. Potential clients message your business from their personal WhatsApp apps and your chatbot responds. You can program your bot to be smart enough to answer a variety of client questions and help you run your business more efficiently.

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Why a WhatsApp chatbot, and not other chatbots? #

Many types of chatbots can help a real estate business. There are a few reasons why WhatsApp is superior:

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app.  #

WhatsApp has over 2 billion users worldwide. If you run your business in a part of the world where WhatsApp is popular, your potential clients are most likely using it.

Run ads on Facebook and Instagram. Chat on WhatsApp. #

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are all owned by the same parent company, Meta. Meta has made it easy for its users to sync the three platforms. You can run property ads on Facebook and Instagram with click-to-WhatsApp buttons. When potential clients click on the ads that they like, their WhatsApp Messenger app opens and they get to speak with you directly.

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What can a real estate WhatsApp chatbot do for you? #

Take a look at the inquiries you receive from potential clients and categorize them. Which of those categories are most frequent? Do you get many messages like “Is this house still available?” or “how much is this apartment?”

The categories with the highest number of inquiries could be the right targets for a bot. In A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot, we talk more about how to select what to automate with a bot.

Here is a list of some of the use cases of WhatsApp chatbot for real estate:

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Qualify leads #

‍When potential tenants and buyers message your agency, you need to create a profile for them to see whether they are a good match for any of your listings. Your bot could ask them questions about

• Whether they want an apartment, house, or villa
• Whether they want to rent or buy
• How many bedrooms they need
• Which area of the city they’re interested in,

And similar questions.

You can design a bot that asks these qualifying questions with reply buttons. Leads can easily select a reply with a tap, and within a few seconds, a profile is created for them. If there are matching listings, it can assign an agent to them and if there aren’t any, it can tell them that.

Assign a client to the relevant agent #

After the bot collects client information, it could assign an agent to that client. For example, let’s say that Alex on your team is responsible for properties for sale, while Adam handles clients wanting to rent. The chatbot asks the clients about what they want. Those looking for a house to buy get automatically assigned to Alex and the clients looking for a place to rent get assigned to Adam. Your business remains organized and your team can focus on the work that matters.

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Run ads on Facebook and Instagram. Chat on WhatsApp #

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all owned by the same parent company, Meta. Meta has made it easy for its users to sync the three platforms. You can run property ads on Facebook and Instagram with click-to-WhatsApp buttons. When potential clients click on the ads they like, their WhatsApp Messenger app opens and they get to speak with you directly.

A chatbot can book client meetings #

After the bot asks the clients questions to qualify them, it can schedule a meeting between a realtor and the clients if they are a great match for a property listing.

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Give 360° online tours, and send photos and videos #

A chatbot could give a 360° viewing of the property in the chat. Moreover, the bot can use WhatsApp’s rich media features, like pictures and videos to show the properties to the clients.

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Send reminders and follow-up messages #

You can automate a chatbot to send clients reminders before viewings, or to follow up with prospective clients. 

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Save client information on your CRM #

If you’re using a CRM or another tool to manage your clients, you can connect your WhatsApp bot to it to save the information on the CRM. Later, if you need to take any action, like sending bulk messages to clients with a certain profile, you can do it with ease.

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Qualify clients for mortgages #

The bot could ask the clients a list of questions to see if they meet the criteria for a home mortgage and if not, what they could do to qualify. It can then guide the qualified clients in the right direction, such as contacting your partner bank.

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Answer frequently asked questions #

What are the questions that you most commonly get from potential clients? You can automate a bot to answer them so that your agents wouldn’t need to spend time on them. Property-related questions about square footage, number of bedrooms, price and installment information are some of the most common questions that a bot can handle.

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Collect feedback and reviews #

After you close deals, your WhatsApp bot can ask the clients about their experience with your real estate. If they had a positive experience, it could guide them to your website to leave a review. If they didn’t have a good experience, it could ask them further questions so that you can improve your work.

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How do you create a real estate WhatsApp chatbot? #

You can get a WhatsApp chatbot in two ways: 

• Code it yourself
• Use a chatbot builder like Rasayel to create one

Regardless of what you choose to do, you must have the following:

• A Facebook Business account
• A phone number that meets Meta’s criteria
• Access to the WhatsApp Business Platform/API or WhatsApp Cloud API
• A CRM or a team inbox (like Rasayel) to send and receive messages

Neither of the WhatsApp APIs has an interface/inbox to send and receive messages. Therefore, a business must use an inbox or a CRM for customer communications. Rasayel is a WhatsApp inbox that lets you communicate with your customers over WhatsApp as a team. It offers many features such as bulk messaging, a chatbot builder, reports, automation rules, and more.

If you want to use Rasayel as your WhatsApp inbox and build a chatbot, you can use either of our Premium or Enterprise plans:

Premium Plan ($200 per month) #

It’s suitable for high-volume teams with complex workflows and has the following features:

• For up to 10 team members
• $20 per additional member
• You can connect up to 50 channels (either multiple WhatsApp channels or Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and more)
• Unlimited contacts
• Unlimited messages
• Importing contacts
• Have it in your browser or as a mobile app for android and ios devices
• Assignments rules
• Custom views
• Bots 
• Campaigns
• Auto notifications
• Reporting
• Ability to integrate with Shopify, HubSpot and Zapier
• Priority support via email or chat
• Onboarding support

Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing) #

This is the option for teams that need a custom-tailored plan. They receive all of the functionalities of the premium plan. It has the same features as the premium plan, including bots, plus the following:

• It can be customized for the number of team members you have.
• You can connect unlimited channels.
• We provide training.

You may try Rasayel for free for 14 days. No credit card needed.

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Final thoughts #

A real estate agency could benefit from a WhatsApp chatbot in many ways. It can answer FAQs, show photos and videos of properties, qualify clients for the listing and much more.

If you want to use a WhatsApp chatbot, first you must get access to the WhatsApp Business API or WhatsApp Cloud API. Then, you need a CRM and/or a team inbox so that you can send and receive messages. Once you have these you can either code a WhatsApp chatbot or get it from a bot builder like Rasayel.

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Learn more #

If you’d like to learn more about how WhatsApp can help you grow your business, please reach out to us on WhatsApp at: +13024070488

We also offer a free consultation session where we go through your use case, answer any questions you have about WhatsApp, and help you build a strategy to make the best out of the platform. Book a call with us here. We’d love to speak with you:

For Europe, Middle East, and Africa

For North and South America

Further reading #

An Introductory Guide to WhatsApp Business Platform/API

A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot