I was talking with a real estate company this week and one of the basic challenges they were trying to overcome was the speed at which they could respond to potential customers. In many cases the customer might be in their car right in front of a property, but when they call the number on the sign they usually get the agent’s voicemail. Pretty basic desire, make it easy for the customer to reach the agent and not their voicemail.
Other items I expected to be high on the their list such as web collaboration tools for agents to work with customers for virtual viewing of properties and/or unified communication client capabilities paled in importance to them. They needed a simple solution to a basic problem and wanted to be certain that whatever communications system they invest in would solve this.
Solving communications challenges for my customers doesn't always involve sophisticated applications, but it almost always involves simplification and improvement of basic communication processes. In this case, agent mobility had to be factored into the call flow to improve their reachability based on a single number. Fortunately, the Mitel Communications Director software can easily be configured to simulataneously ring multiple numbers prior to routing the call to voicemail or an attendant, thus maximizing the chance that the customer reaches the agent in real time. It can even be used with their existing phone system and whatever cell phones the agents might have. It's called Dynamic Extension, check it out in the video below.
Of course we did what all southerners do when it snows, we went out to buy bread and milk because you never know how long you might be snowed in waiting for it melt. The Metro-Atlanta snowplow is an elusive creature which typically goes into hiding as soon as it snows, though sometimes it is spotted at the airport.
Next morning the snow was still here, so good thing we risked our lives on snow covered streets the night before to battle the crowds at our local Kroger. I'm sure if we had waited until this morning the shelves would be bare.
