Richard Humphreys |
This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.
Selling or purchasing a home involves countless forms, documents and communications with multiple parties – inspectors, appraisers, title vendors and more. Sharlene Mercier, owner and founder of SOHO Realty, a real estate brokerage operating in the Houston and Atlanta markets, wanted to make this process simpler and easier for her customers to navigate.
Mercier brought on software and digital solutions consulting firm Optimum, to develop a customised solution that would ease the paperwork and documentation processes for her clients and streamline the home buying experience.
SOHO Realty was already using dotloop, a transaction management tool for real estate brokerages, to manage its electronic signature and other documentation needs – but it wasn’t a complete solution. The company needed help automating the delivery of documents and tracking the status of tasks in the home buying and selling process. Additionally, it wanted to better manage its incoming leads from buyers and sellers and ensure proper and fast follow-ups.
Using Nintex for Office 365, Optimum created a customised customer relationship management (CRM) solution centred around the way SOHO Realty operates. The solution utilised one advanced and fully customised Nintex Form and three Nintex Workflows, with indirect integration to SOHO’s dotloop tenant.
Optimum’s Nintex solution starts with SOHO Realty’s online enquiries webform. Once completed and submitted, the information is added to the CRM which triggers a Nintex Workflow that notifies a sales rep to follow up the lead. The rep follows up with the customer and collects more information, entering the information into the Nintex Form.
Next, the sales rep qualifies or disqualifies the lead. If qualified, the customer is assigned to an agent, which is notified via the Nintex Workflow. As the sales journey progresses, the agent continues to use the Nintex Form to collect more information and if applicable kicks off a workflow to add the buying or selling and other legal documents to dotloop. Customer information is also automatically prepopulated into the applicable documents in dotloop, based on information that has already been collected.
As documents are signed and completed in dotloop, Nintex starts a workflow to deliver them to the applicable parties and the agent is notified through a workflow to continue the process. Additionally, the agent can track the status of every step in the process from Nintex.
The solution helps SOHO Realty improve the overall experience of buying and selling a home. Thanks to workflow automation, staff have better visibility into the status of documents and easier task management and assignment, giving them more time to spend helping their customers.