How to use Eagle and adjust to operating under lockdown and social distancing

We wanted to reach out and wish you health and safety during this difficult time.

With social distancing in place, there are massive effects on the way real estate will be done in the next period of time. In this email I want to cover some of the ways you can use Eagle to help with everything that is occurring.

What we’re doing at Eagle

We’re all working from home and we’re dedicated to helping you and all of your clients be successful. We’re here to support you. We are confident in delivering our product and services to you and we are all working even harder to go even better right now. We are focusing on faster support response times, and bringing out features that will help during this time.

Here are a few tips for how to tweak your Eagle account during this time.

1. Use Private Inspection Bookings

We’ve recently launched new Inspection Bookings functionality. We’ve had it for rentals for a while in our Leasing module, and this week we’ve just released it for sales listings as well.

Using our private inspection bookings you can:

1. Set specific inspection slots and let people book or;
2. Set your general availability, integrate with your calendar, and let people book in at a time suitable for them

We’ve had a lot of great feedback about this so far, and I’d highly recommend you to check it out. 

• For an overview of what it does, check out this video
• For a deeper look at the features, there is a guide here
• For information on setting it up in your account, you can go through this guide here

We are aware that these are unprecedented times right now and many agents are doing it tough. We want to help where we can, so we have added online inspection bookings for sales to all FULL, OFFICE and PROFESSIONAL subscriptions at no extra cost for the duration of the lockdowns. 

If you’d like one on one training or assistance with getting Inspection Bookings setup for your office, make sure to get in touch with us.

2. Update your enquiry autoresponder and inspection reminder emails

At the moment due to COVID-19 there are probably a lot of things you want to tell every buyer or prospective tenant you speak with. We recommend updating your enquiry auto responders to be something like this:

“Hi {{contact.first_name}},

Thank you for your enquiry on {{property.address_line_1}}{{property_postcode_suburb}}. We will be in touch with you shortly to discuss your requirements.

If you haven't already, we suggest you visit this property on our website {{property.third_party_link_or_eagle_website_link}}. Many of our properties have additional information - you might find it invaluable.

If you are in the market now, we strongly suggest you sign up to our property alerts. We sometimes sell properties that are only advertised on our website, so there may be properties that you have not yet seen.

You can also sign up to our monthly newsletter and access market reports, analysis and articles affecting property within the area, and of course you can unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Due to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, we are conducting all inspections privately right now. Our priority is the safety and wellbeing of our clients, staff, and the general public.

At all inspections, please:

1. Maintain at least 1.5m distance
2. Avoid touching surfaces
3. Wash your hands before entering

Please do not book an inspection if you have:

1. You are, or have been unwell with cold or flu like symptoms
2. Travelled overseas in the last 14 days
3. Have been in contact with any suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19

I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

3. Use more rich media on your listings

Create as much rich content as you can for your listings. Videos, virtual tours, interactive floor plans. 

If you don’t already do virtual tours, at the very least you can do a video walk through like this one. I was recently talking to Andy Reid at Sold By Auctions and Simplify Marketing who is helping set these up.

If you are using new types of rich media to promote your listings that don’t show up on your website yet, make sure to get in touch with us to get that updated for you.

4. Offer online inspections on your website

Some agents are offering 1 on 1 online inspections where the agent walks through the house while in a zoom meeting or Google Meet with the buyer. If you are offering this service, promote it and add a “Request an online inspection” button added to your listings. Make sure to get in touch with us if you’d like to add this to your website

5. Put a notice on your website to let clients know how you are handling inspections

If you normally exclusively run Opens, let your clients know that you’re now doing private inspections. You could put a note like this on your website

"Property inspections are still happening.

While open home inspections are currently not permitted for your safety, please contact us to organise a private inspection."

Even if, previous to this craziness, you were only doing private inspections, I think it’s a great idea to explicitly let your clients know what you’re doing.

6. Add COVID-19 information to your website

Being explicit about what you are doing and what you are not doing while this pandemic is going through. We recommend you update your website with as much information as you can. A good starting point might be something like this:

Due to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, we are conducting all inspections privately right now. Our priority is the safety and wellbeing of our clients, staff, and the general public.

At all inspections, please:

1. Maintain at least 1.5m distance
2. Avoid touching surfaces
3. Wash your hands before entering

Please do not book an inspection if you have:

1. You are, or have been unwell with cold or flu like symptoms
2. Travelled overseas in the last 14 days
3. Have been in contact with any suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19

7. Prospecting - Change the conversations you are having with people

In uncertain times, people are less likely to act, but more willing to talk. 

Many people do not want to commit to anything right now, but they are willing to spend the time to just talk and learn.

Now is the time to change your conversations. Don’t try to move the Earth and convince people to make a change. Instead, take the extra time to talk to your clients, build a relationship, educate, and have business lined up for when this crazy time passes.

In Eagle we have recently made massive upgrades to our filtering, so you can drill down on the people you want to speak to. For more info on our advanced filtering, refer to here.

8. Integrate with an online offer management tool like MarketBuy

Our friends at MarketBuy have an innovative online offer management system. With auctions cancelled, many agents are turning to systems like MarketBuy to bring transparency and efficiency to a sales process. 

Throughout the lockdown, MarketBuy are running a deal where you get free setup and don’t pay anything unless you sell. We highly recommend it.

We have an integration with MarketBuy where you can display your online offer pages from your website. Click here for more info on how to get setup.

9. Communicate with all your clients

Send out a bulk email to all your clients with information about what you are doing during COVID-19. If you're new to bulk communications, you can follow these video guides here (you'll need to be logged in to view this link).

10. Remember to update your listings if you have cancelled auctions

Don’t forget to update your listings if you have cancelled auctions - now is not the right time for automated auction reminders to be going out!

11. Keep your team vibe going with remote work

Most people will be working from home, and it’s more important than ever to stay in touch and keep the team vibe going.

With remote work, there is no longer the luxury of letting communication happen organically. Teams must be proactive with communication and have more formalised communication structures in place to make sure communication happens effectively.

At Eagle we’re using Google Meet to have daily meetings within all our teams. At each meeting, everyone goes through what they’re working on now, what they’re working on next, and if they’re blocked by anything. This leads into discussion and problem solving.

We use “Workplace by Facebook” as our internal chat tools. This allows us to chat as a group, and also individually amongst the team. It also gives us our own internal Facebook where people can post notifications and communicate with each other.

Stay positive, do what you can now, and focus on being in a strong position when this is over

For questions on anything, please reach out to us on 03 9016 0444 or [email protected], we'd love to help right now.

 

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