Every day we talk to real estate agents about their data – and how Rita. can help them use their data to build better relationships and create more opportunity. What we find in most databases is that there is a total number of contacts, and then a ‘real’ number of contacts.
The ‘real’ number of contacts tend to be a refined community of property owners or prospective property owners, for whom there is good data – an email address, phone number, last name and maybe even property addresses, and a service history through agent notes, recording personal engagement.
The ‘total’ number of contacts in a database tends to be a combination of this ‘real’ number and then a mass of other records that have been orphaned, added automatically by third-party apps, duplicates, incomplete records and total mysteries. If that sounds like you, don’t be alarmed you are not alone.
Proving, once again, that Pareto nailed it with his 80/20 rule…what we find is that the ‘real’ number of contacts is around 20% of a large database, and the other 80% is basically rubbish.
So what happens with the rubbish. The short answer is nothing, and Rita’s unique engagement analytics normally proves that an overwhelming proportion of the database goes without engagement or ‘service’. We call it ‘The Big Red’ because on Rita.’s engagement feedback, contacts that have been disengaged for longer than six months show up as a big red segment, see below.
With a bit of education, some bulk data improvements and Rita powered Opportunities, we see the engagement segment beginning to widen – which means greater engagement with customers.
The bulk data improvements involve some data augmentation and data hygiene work, but it also involves archiving some of the ‘rubbish’ contacts…because they aren’t your customers. They aren’t your customers because you are ignoring them. They aren’t your customers because you don’t have a relationship or a history of service. They aren’t your customers sometimes because you don’t have their email, phone number or even their permission to contact them. And as we have found out…sometimes they aren’t your customers because they are no longer with us, in the sense that they are dead.
Which begs the question….If they aren’t your customers…what are they even doing in your Customer. Relationship. Management. Software?
So archive them. Don’t be scared. It’s not the same as deleting them, in fact, it’s just like tidying your wardrobe so you can see, and enjoy the clothes that you like to wear.
Here’s a homework challenge. Have a look at your total number of contacts and think about how many of those people are actually your customers.
If you would like Rita. to help you to understand and use your data better, get in touch at getaire.com.au.
