Every office has at least one: the realtor, salesperson, specialist, or attorney who clearly works hard but is always missing and is incredibly difficult to find.
Andy, a real estate agent in Nashville, is the missing agent at his firm. They call him “0018.” On any given weekday, he has at least 18 clients to meet with, 18 calls for him at the office, 18 different homes under contract and at least 18 urgent messages in one place or another.
Unfortunately, he only spends an average of 18 minutes at the office. And this could equal just under an hour one day and no sign of him for the next two days.
How can Andy (or his colleagues, his clients, and most importantly any warm leads) operate this way? He’s the #1 agent at his firm, but he’s so hard to find. What’s the catch?
Turns out, Andy is very tech-savvy. And he has figured out how to set up a system that lets him coexist as both Agent 0018 and the best, most responsive agent a client could ask for.
He has convinced his firm to upgrade to cloud-based communications. And they couldn’t be happier to oblige.
While Andy spends a ton of time driving to and from showings, open houses, meetings and closings, he knows every time an important call comes through.
- Calls to his office are set to immediately forward to his cell when he is not checked in at the office (which is almost always).
- Calls sent to his cell that he cannot take immediately are set up to send him an email notification, a “voicemail-to-email” feature that means he can see his messages right on his phone without having to pick up the phone and listen, so he knows when an important call comes through that needs to be returned right away.
- His CRM system keeps all his contacts in one nice, accessible place that he can jump on during his 18 minutes at the office to return the non-urgent calls with the “click-to-call” feature that saves him dialing, contact lookup and search time.
- Even though he is a high performer, Andy also knows the importance of work / life balance. As easy as it is to reach Andy during business hours, he is able to “shut down” in the evening to spend quality time with his family. The use of a personal direct inward dial number (or “DID”) allows him to accomplish this. During the day his direct calls ring his mobile device, but try to call him after hours and you will get his office voicemail (which comes to him via email, remember?). If he relied solely on giving out his cell phone number, he would receive calls at all hours of the night.
- If Any needs to make an office call in the evening or on the go, his office caller ID is sent out instead of his cell number, so there’s no danger of just anyone getting his mobile number. He accomplished this by transforming his smartphone into an office extension when he installed a mobile client. This allows Andy to make calls “from the office,” regardless of his physical location.
Thanks to cloud communications, The Case of the Missing Agent seems to have been solved by Agent 0018 himself. He is only missing to those who can (or can’t see him). To his clients and colleagues, he is completely present.