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IDX feeds into CRMs are Trending

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CRMs are all about making us more efficient in what we do. The more you can do from within it, without having to go out to other programs, the more efficient you are.

So we’re clear, let’s define what an IDX feed is. It is part of your MLS database being fed to your web site. It is what enables your web site visitors to search for listings. There are many IDX providers but if you have property search capability on your own site, odds are that it is provided using an IDX feed. Traditionally your web site is the only place that IDX feeds to.

But you do your searches and automated follow-up with buyers in your MLS. You get a buyer, you add their criteria, set up an automated search, and they get any new listings that become available.  If you are in your CRM and you get a call from your buyer, you have to go into your MLS, find that buyer and look up what you’ve sent them. Typically it does not show you what you actually showed them. How long does it take to do that? Not long but…

Historically, we:

  • Get a buyer prospect
  • Add them and their preferences to our CRM
  • Go into the MLS and add those same preferences and set them up on an automated search
  • We then show them some homes and record what we showed them in the CRM, manually.

Anything wrong with this picture? It’s the back and forth between the CRM and the MLS. Not a big deal but wouldn’t it be sweet if you could do almost everything MLS related right in your CRM instead? No more back and forth? And have more features and options to choose from than your MLS?

That’s exactly what has been happening lately. Some CRMs are having the IDX feed directly into the CRM. When you view a buyer in your CRM you see what you’ve shown them, what you’ve sent them, and much more. If you get a new listing, you can do a quick search for buyers in your CRM that may be interested in that listing and send it out to them, branded to you, not your MLS! This is something that agents have been asking me for for years. It addresses one of the last major inefficiencies when having to use multiple programs to do our jobs.

It seems to me that in the relatively near future all the better CRMs will be going this way. It’s long overdue and more than welcome. So who has it so far? Masterdigm, Propertybase and Tribus. So far, out of the three, Masterdigm is far and away the most cost effective and it will be interesting to see what new CRMs coming in with this feature will charge. If you’re happy with your current CRM, then this one feature should not typically be enough to change CRMs. But if you’re already sniffing around for a new one this can be very interesting.

Best Practices: Adding properties

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To add or not to add – that is the question! Do you need to record property information in your CRM? You already have to key the property info into the MLS, and probably your Web site as well. Now the CRM too? Whether or not you do is one question, and if you decide to, the next question is how much information you are going to key into it. It depends upon what information you are actually going to need and use from within the CRM.

One type of information you want in there is information that is commonly referenced by you or your team. This is information that either you now have to go into the MLS for, or for which you have to find the file. The idea is that if you fairly commonly need the information, you key it in to the CRM, because long term, it is quicker to key it in once and then reference it in the CRM, than it is to go into the MLS or find the file. Another reason is that if you have a team, and the information is in a file, you may not have access to it, or the access will take unnecessary time. The obvious fields to always complete are things like sale price, listing date, expiration date, executory agreement of sale date, closing date, etc.

Part of what you are responsible to produce are property fliers, just-listed cards, just sold cards, open house fliers, brokers open fliers, price reduction fliers or post cards, and anything else of the kind. You can either task a third party with it, or you create them in-house. If you have a staff, it is generally more cost effective and more expedient to have them do it. There are many factors involved in the decision, but creating them in-house should not be discounted out-of-hand without a significant evaluation. If the decision is to create them in-house, then they should be done from within the CRM. That defines yet another set of information that needs to be keyed into the property module, as you will be drawing on that information for merge fields required for the publisher pieces.

via Best Practices: Adding properties.