Much like dating, technology adoption is rarely love at first sight. There are predictable stages and steps you can take to encourage the relationship and help your agents get the technology support they need.
The first stage is awareness. At this point in the technology cycle, there is no shortage of tools and platforms for agents to choose from, and they know they need technology to be successful. So when it comes to awareness, the focus is simply on letting them know what your brokerage or MLS offers. That may seem easy enough, but simply giving them a list or login to the single-sign-on dashboard filled with app icons is not enough. A short technology onboarding class with overview of all the technology offerings for your organization is a great place to start with new agents. But don’t assume that just because an agent has been a MLS subscriber or member of your brokerage for years that they know about all the tools you offer.
Regular marketing of your technology offerings is necessary to cut through the noise and make all your agents aware. High impact product overview videos and regular email reminders highlighting the business benefits of different tools can help. Agents will not be impressed by the features of the technology until they understand the benefits it provides to their business. Lead generation, active client engagement, and past client retention are all popular benefits that agents are often looking to improve. Also consider adding references to other tools in any training you are providing or banner ads in your emails to your agents.
The second stage is engagement. At this point, you have piqued their interest in one of the technology solutions you offer and they want to try it. At this critical stage in the falling in love process, you need to support their efforts and try to shorten the learning curve. Most agents get into the business because they are good with people, not apps. Training is the objective here. Sometimes this is just the basics, like which button to press to send a message, but don’t overlook training on the various use cases for each technology solution.
Just knowing how to use the technology is not enough to cement agent adoption of the tool. They need to understand the bottom line: How is this technology going to make me more money? If they don’t see and experience the benefits of the tool early on, then it really does not matter how easy it is to use or how efficiently they interact with it. Does the technology keep them organized so they can make more prospecting calls? Can it create market reports that sellers will want to download from their website in exchange for their email address? Or maybe it can predict which doors in a neighborhood they should knock on that are most likely to sell soon.
Whatever the reason is, your training needs to include these implantation steps in order keep the agents engaged. Once they fall in love with the results, they will ultimately love you for providing them these technology offerings. Having great technology to offer to your agents is not enough. If they are not using it, then it is not providing them any value. The new Customer Experience Index for MLSs measures all three stages of technology adoption in your organization, and can help you improve with insights that are working in other markets. It is not too late to join the Customer Experience Index for the 2022 year.
Hi. We help agents with Email Marketing The first step is seeing what kind of database the agents have– I can tell you after doing this for 20 years almost 9 out of 10 Do NOT have a clean, current database .. We build one for them…. Now these agents are never going to adopt a CRM because they don’t have any skin in the game- they don’t have data to upload to the CRM… We work with top 20 Brokerages…and they provide a lot of tools but one HUGE brokerage can’t get above 16% Adoption– For a Free CRM that is more than what they need.
I often describe the problem that most brokerages have with technology as they follow the Ron Popeil method of launch –
Set it and Forget It.
The problem is that in an environment where agents can choose to use the tools they want, the agents need to be constantly resold on why they should use the brokerage provided tools. Most brokerages do have the employee time to do that for every tool they buy. That’s where a great vendor comes in!
The problem is that most vendors have raced to $0 in terms of what they charge brokerages. So they can’t afford to provide world class service and support that agents need to fall in love with their brokerage tools.
So at TRIBUS, we’ll continue to say no to the $5 / user deals so that we can invest in the product and our people to ensure the brokerage is getting the best possible adoption and most importantly ROI for their dollars.