WhatsApp Business for Real Estate: Using Chatbots for Enhanced Client Engagement
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 for real estate.
WhatsApp chatbots are only available through WhatsApp Business API, a powerful tool that takes your customer interactions to the next level. Unlike the WhatsApp Business app, the Business API offers a suite of features that are tailor-made for managing high volumes of messages and automating responses.
Read more on WhatsApp Chatbots & How to Create One Today.
Why use WhatsApp Business API for Real Estate?
With the WhatsApp Business API, you can automate responses to common queries, send out property listings, schedule viewings, and even gather customer feedback—all within the familiar interface of WhatsApp. This not only enhances the efficiency of your communication but also provides a seamless experience for your clients.
With the WhatsApp Business API, you can streamline communication with features like tracking and utilizing customer data, seamless CRM integration, and advanced automation. It allows for efficient management of client interactions, from automated responses to personalized conversations.
WhatsApp Chatbot for Real Estate: How to Use it
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?”.
After identifying the most common inquiries, it’s time to put your chatbot to work. Here are some practical ways to effectively employ your chatbot for these key tasks in real estate.
Identify High-Frequency Inquiries
The categories with the highest number of inquiries could be the right targets for a bot. Once you’ve identified the most frequent categories of inquiries, you can program your chatbot to handle these efficiently.
For instance, if a large number of inquiries are about the availability and pricing of properties, set up your chatbot to automatically provide this information. This not only saves time but also ensures that potential clients receive instant responses, enhancing their experience.
Offer Options for Further Actions
Your chatbot should provide information and guide clients on the next steps. For example, if a client inquires about a specific property, the chatbot can offer to schedule a viewing, send more detailed information, or connect them with a real estate agent for more personalized assistance.
Let’s take a closer look at how WhatsApp chatbots can really make a difference for real estate companies, from boosting sales and improving customer support to stepping up their marketing game:
Why Use WhatsApp in Real Estate Sales
Using a WhatsApp chatbot for real estate sales offers a new approach to interacting with clients. By automating responses and managing inquiries efficiently, you can streamline your sales process, making it more responsive and effective.
This approach not only saves time but also enhances the client experience, making it a vital tool in the modern real estate market. Let’s explore how to effectively run real estate sales with WhatsApp through strategic chatbot use.
Qualify Leads
Chatbots are ideal for lead qualification. Let’s say you have a real estate agency and match tenants or home buyers with homeowners. When people message you, you need to create a profile for them to see whether they are a good match for your listings. Your bot could ask them questions about:
- Type of property: apartment, house, or villa
- Intent: rent or buy
- Number of bedrooms
- Preferred city area
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.
The bot could also ask 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.
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.
Save Client Information on 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.
Send Reminders & Follow-Up Messages
You can automate a chatbot to send clients reminders before viewings or to follow up with prospective clients.
Virtual Tours & Showings
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
Property Listing & Enquiries
A WhatsApp chatbot can automate responses and provide instant information on properties. It efficiently handles client inquiries, from qualifying potential leads to scheduling viewings and collecting post-viewing feedback.
WhatsApp Chatbot in Real Estate Customer Support
In real estate, as in any other industry, providing quick and effective customer support is crucial for maintaining client satisfaction and securing transactions. WhatsApp chatbots enable instant communication, offer 24/7 assistance, and efficiently handle routine inquiries, allowing real estate professionals to focus more on personalized client interactions.
Automate Engagement
The chatbot can proactively reach out to clients with timely updates and helpful information. For instance, a chatbot can automatically notify clients about important deadlines, changes in their transaction status, or documentation requirements.
Moreover, the chatbot can be tailored to provide clients with personalized tips on property maintenance, updates on local real estate market trends, or even annual reminders for property tax deadlines.
This not only enhances the customer support experience but also builds a long-term relationship with the client.
24/7 Customer Support
One of the most significant advantages of a WhatsApp chatbot is the ability to offer 24/7 customer support. Real estate queries often come at any time, and clients expect quick and accurate responses.
With a chatbot, your clients can receive immediate answers to their questions at any hour, whether it’s about property details, the status of their transaction, or general inquiries about real estate processes. This round-the-clock availability ensures that clients feel supported and valued, significantly improving their experience with your agency.
Moreover, for more complex queries that require human intervention, the chatbot can gather preliminary information and route these inquiries to the appropriate team member for follow-up during working hours, ensuring a seamless transition and efficient resolution.
Answer FAQs
What are the questions that you most commonly get from potential clients? You can automate a bot to answer them so that your agents won’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.
Auto-Assign Conversations
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.
WhatsApp Chatbot in Real Estate Marketing
WhatsApp chatbots offer a direct and efficient way to engage with potential clients, follow up on leads, and gather valuable feedback. By integrating seamlessly with social media advertising and automating key communication tasks, chatbots can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Collect Leads Using Click-to-WhatsApp Ads
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 can speak with you directly.
Automate Follow-ups
Program the chatbot to automatically follow up with leads who have shown interest in specific properties. These timely reminders can re-engage potential clients and keep your listings top-of-mind.
Collect Feedback & 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.
Quick Guide: Real Estate WhatsApp Chatbot Setup
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 the WhatsApp Business Platform nor WhatsApp Cloud API have an interface/inbox for businesses to send and receive messages. This is why using an inbox or a CRM for customer communications is essential.
Rasayel, for instance, provides a WhatsApp inbox. It allows team-based communication with customers via WhatsApp and includes features like bulk messaging, chatbot building, detailed reporting, powerful integrations, and customizable automation rules to streamline your customer interactions.
Best Practices for Real Estate WhatsApp Chatbots
When integrating WhatsApp chatbots into your real estate business, following best practices ensures effectiveness and enhances client satisfaction. Here are some key strategies:
1. Understand Your Audience
Before setting up your chatbot, deeply understand your target audience’s needs and preferences. Tailor the chatbot’s responses and features to address the specific requirements of home buyers, sellers, and renters. This personalized approach makes interactions more relevant and engaging.
2. Keep Conversations User-Friendly
Ensure the chatbot’s language and conversation flow are easy to understand and user-friendly. Avoid jargon and overly complex instructions. The goal is to make the chatbot interactions as smooth and natural as possible.
3. Update Property Information
Keep your chatbot updated with the latest property listings and information. Accurate and up-to-date information is crucial for maintaining credibility and client trust.
4. Integrate with CRM Systems
For a seamless experience, integrate your chatbot with your existing CRM systems. This integration helps in tracking client interactions and personalizing future communications.
5. Monitor & Analyze Performance
Regularly monitor and analyze interactions between clients and the chatbot. Use these insights to improve the chatbot’s responses and functionality, ensuring it continually evolves to meet client needs.
6. Offer Human Assistance
While automation is beneficial, you should always provide an option for clients to speak with a human agent. This ensures that more complex queries or concerns are adequately addressed.
7. Test & Refine Regularly
Regularly test the chatbot for issues and refine its functionality based on client feedback and technological advancements. Continuous improvement is key to maintaining an effective chatbot service.
Success Story: Boosting Real Estate Sales with WhatsApp Bots
Centaline Property Agency Limited, a leading real estate firm in Hong Kong, dramatically improved its sales and customer engagement by integrating WhatsApp Business API. They faced the challenge of responding quickly to numerous customer inquiries across multiple channels.
The solution was a custom WhatsApp chatbot, which streamlined communication, collected customer information, and efficiently directed leads to the appropriate agents.
Source: WhatsApp
This technological leap resulted in a 137% increase in leads, a 27% rise in sales conversions, and a 12.8% boost in qualified calls to the agency, just one month after implementation.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, using a WhatsApp chatbot for real estate is a smart move if you’re looking to stay current and efficient. These chatbots make your life easier by handling a lot of everyday tasks – like answering basic property questions, scheduling meetings, and even getting feedback from clients.
They’re a big help in keeping things organized and moving smoothly, especially when you’re juggling lots of clients and properties. By putting in a bit of effort to set them up and keep them updated, you can really improve the way you connect with clients and manage your workload.
In short, WhatsApp chatbots are a practical, modern tool that can help take your real estate business to the next level.
Frequently Asked Questions
A WhatsApp chatbot for real estate is an automated messaging tool that operates within the WhatsApp platform. It’s designed to assist real estate businesses by automating responses to common queries, scheduling viewings, managing property inquiries, and more.
It can save time by handling routine inquiries, improve client engagement through prompt responses, assist in lead qualification, streamline the scheduling of viewings, and keep your CRM system updated with client interactions.
A chatbot can be integrated with your CRM system to automatically update client information and interactions, ensuring seamless transition and continuity in client management.
Chatbots can be effectively used for marketing purposes, such as sending automated follow-ups to leads, collecting feedback and reviews, and responding to leads attracted through your campaigns on Facebook or Instagram.
While chatbots are great for handling routine inquiries, they can also identify complex questions and reroute them to human agents for more personalized assistance.
Yes, many real estate agents use WhatsApp as a tool for communication with clients. It’s used for sending property details, scheduling viewings, and quick client interactions.
To attract buyers on WhatsApp, share your WhatsApp contact information on your marketing materials, use WhatsApp Business features like catalogs to showcase properties, and consider running click-to-WhatsApp ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
To attract buyers on WhatsApp, share your WhatsApp contact information on your marketing materials, use WhatsApp Business features like catalogs to showcase properties, and consider running click-to-WhatsApp ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Both platforms have their strengths. Instagram is great for visual storytelling and showcasing properties through images and videos. Facebook offers a broader reach and is useful for detailed posts, community engagement, and targeted advertising. The best platform depends on your specific audience and marketing strategy.
Learn more
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Niloofar focuses on marketing and partnerships at Rasayel. She has worked in startups and large enterprises and lived in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. When she’s not working, she enjoys socializing, doing reformer and getting lost in nature.
