Good technology should save your agency time, money or dramatically improve your customers’ experience – or better yet, do all three at the same time. But, with a lot of different options out there for agents, it can be difficult to identify which technology will help your business the most, and filter out those that will end up being a burden in the long run. Here are five top tips to help you choose.
Look for technology that will either improve or eliminate existing pain points. If you haven’t already, examine your existing processes to identify your business’s pain points before you start looking at new technology.
Which steps in the process slow your team down? Which steps take the most time to complete? Your staff can help you to validate whether new technology will be a solution to these pain points.
Good technology providers place a premium on user experience, which means that any new software should be easy and straightforward for your staff to use and, ultimately, an improvement on the way you operate now. There’s no point in investing in technology that slows your team down.
The right solution can also help you to retain staff, especially during the “great resignation”. Investing in new ways to support your team and their day-to-day tasks will show how much you value them.
It’s also just as important to choose intuitive technology if it’s landlord or tenant-facing – you shouldn’t have to spend any time explaining to your customers how to use it. In an increasingly mobile-first age, you should also consider accessibility – will you be able to access this technology whenever you need to, wherever you are?
Does this technology help you to acquire more customers? Reduce costs? Grow your portfolio? You’ll need to know what you want the technology to achieve before purchasing it.
Make sure that any new software you invest in will help you achieve both your agency’s short and long-term goals – for example, will it be able to handle a higher volume of lettings? Manage more properties? Will it be easy to train new members of staff as your agency expands?
Technology shouldn’t be a case of “set and forget”. The best technology providers are constantly improving their software, based on feedback from their customers. This means they should have processes in place for you to provide feedback and also keep you informed about updates to their systems, so you can start to take advantage of new integrations and features as soon as possible.
Adopting new technology is an investment but, like any good investment, it should be one that pays off. You therefore need some form of assurance that it can achieve what you aim to achieve.
You should choose a provider that can quantify how its technology will help your agency reach its goals, and can provide ongoing support through its account management services to ensure you continue to achieve them in the future.
Goodlord‘s award-winning lettings platform now integrates with the latest API solution from Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS), to automate tenancy deposit registration and reduce the time letting agents spend on tenancy administration. Read about it here