Problem:
Grace Clayton Real Estate is a one woman Real Estate Company. Currently, this company is functioning within a difficult economy and working to gain a competitive advantage. The problem we are addressing is creating a strategy to help Ms. Clayton gain a competitive advantage in this marketplace and innovate some specific aspect of her business.
Database Solution:
Currently GC Real Estate is outdated on its record keeping. The all important database is currently on multiple word documents as well as hand written notes. We propose to create a database that will allow for this important information to be more readily available and easily found. To do this, we would create a functioning excel data keeping system that would also allow for sorting by specific characteristics such as location or age.
Standardizing Services:
One of the major issues that Residential Real Estate Agents must learn to deal with is the amount of time wasted during the home buying process. This is typically due to the lack of a specific plan by the Real Estate Agent and the lack of the clients knowing exactly what they want. We believe we can create a standardized template by which Ms. Clayton can optimize her time with each specific client. This would consist of an initial survey which would help the client think about what is important to them before the process begins. Additionally, it would specifically lay out the services that Ms. Clayton would provide and the limits on her time.
Website Redesign:
GC Real Estate currently has a website but it is extremely basic and outdated. In today’s society, a website is a must for expansion of business as the web has become a major channel for finding potential clients. We propose to help redesign the look of the website and the functionality so as it becomes a significant asset to GC Real Estate.
I like your database idea the most. Real estate agents, especially on the residential side, typically need to have a lot of clients to be successful over the long run. A database could be effective for organizational purposes. If you have any MS Access skills or know someone that does, it could make the database more efficient than excel.
ReplyDeleteThe Database and Website are a must and really easy.
ReplyDeleteFor the Database, you should try either salesforce.com or http://tinyurl.com/ccw6x3 which is one I found on a google search. If you need to go for something free you could do excel until one of these options becomes worth it.
For the website. She could probably do a really basic on website from wordpress.com that would look really good and be easy for her to manage.
1) I like this idea. The main constraint would be making sure that the owner was trained on use of this database and would commit to keeping it up.
ReplyDelete2) My main concern here would be that a lot of home buyers have no idea what they want when they begin looking. They may respond to a survey in one way - but from what I have seen, people often change their minds after actually walking through a few homes.
3) I think that this is necessary, but not sufficient for creating competitive advantage. Does the company have the budget to redesign the website?
1. Couldn't hurt to have better IT for improved ops... but I don't it would address her current problems of not attracting enough customers in the short run.
ReplyDelete2. Again, this could help her ops, and could lead to better business via word of mouth... but unless she is really struggling with running her business and is actually making customers mad with her poor process, this is won't address the key issue.
3. Yes. A better website will help her attract more customers now... that is if the redesign incorporates some Search Engine Optimization techniques (SEO) that gets her site prominently displayed on Google searches (First page, or even top 5) Without optimizing her search standings, a great looking website could go to waste.
I think the database idea will have the best long-term benefits. Creating a robust system will allow her to track all leads and contacts, and manage communications with past and future customers. I think salesforce.com, suggested above, would likely be cost prohibitive for a one-person company. I'd recommend a well-designed Access database, which automatically saves every entry and eliminates the danger of faulty sorting or other errors that can accidentally doom excel documents.
ReplyDeleteI think the survey is a great idea, and might provide a good starting point, but given the way people generally buy houses, by looking around and slowly building their preferences by experience, I'm not sure it would actually streamline the process overall.
A new website would be nice, but since people generally choose realtors by word of mouth, I wouldn't prioritize this over the database.
1) I like this idea. The better database system could definitely help the company a lot. Trainning people to input the data correctly would be the major issue.
ReplyDelete2) For the first-time home buyers, I don't think that they would know what they want or may change their minds frequently. Therefore, I believe that the standardized service should include interviewing with the clients to know their backgrounds, financial status, needs, desires, and etc. couple times in the beginning of the service process. It would be more helpful than asking them to take the survey.
3) I think that this is necessary and could create competitive advantage. Actually, I think that you should implement all of these three ideas to get competitive advantages for the company.
I like the database idea or the website redesign. my conern with the website redesign is that it may be costly. I think the database idea gives her the biggest impact in a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of getting a competitive advantage, I don't know that the database would really make much of a difference to customers.
ReplyDeleteI think that standardizing services by means of a checklist might be a great way to streamline part of the process and part of it could even be shifted to the customer if part of the checklist was simple. I think this could help lower costs by reducing the amount of labor required.
While the other two ideas might help reduce costs, I think that the website redesign would be the only option to help increase customer volume.
I really like your second idea (template). It could really help Grace by keeping her on track and making the process more efficient with less room for error. It also best addresses your central goal of giving her a competitive advantage, since she could use this to market herself to customers as making the process as easy and transparent as possible. I would think that customers would love to see what's involved in the process to plan their time, be thinking ahead and know what's coming, and have more confidence that their realtor knows what's going on.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be really important to do some research into what info other realty companies gather, how they communicate with customers, what tools they use, and what customers want to know about the process.
It might be tough to redesign the website or create a database in just a few weeks and those would both require training someone to take over after y'all are done. The template would be easy to implement, costs nothing, and could help her a ton with focusing.
The database and customer suvery idea seems like a convienient way to best serve her clients. It would certainly allow your customer to optimize her time. In addition it could be used to identify trents within her target market.
ReplyDeleteThe web-redesign while certainly valueable might be tough to implement in such a short period of time. Plus, selling residential property is much more about the experience with the agent and their ability to cater to the clients needs.
#1 - there must be some kind of off-the-shelf system for this purpose. Check the microsoft Access templates to see if this is already written. Maybe a simple CRM system would move her miles ahead and not require you to write any code - just to show her how she could use it for her purposes.
ReplyDeleteI think #2 has the most potential. This approach to "managing expectations" is going to help her help people much more efficiently. It would also seem to help people help her to help them. What I mean is if they understand her process, they can find ways to work within it. If they don't understand her process, they can't help make it more efficient.
#3 seems to be a "cost of doing business". I wonder - since real estate is such a personal relationship thing - whether facebook or some other social networking infrastructure might be a more effective way to get the referrals that real-estate people live and die on.
I think these all sound like good ideas with the potential to have a positive impact on your client's business. This may be the time for you to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the individual members of your group. Are any of you particularly good at designing websites or databases? Do you have any previous experience working with home buyers or real estate agents that would help you to be able to design a standardized template by which Ms. Clayton can optimize her time? What other resources (i.e. professional web designers, successful real estate agents willing to share ideas, etc.) do you have at your group's disposal? It sounds like you have identified three very different areas of Ms Clayton's business that would benefit from innovation, now you just need to think about how you are best equipped to help your client.
ReplyDeleteThe Data Base solution would serve her well. There are plenty of reasons for her to adopt this application. However, how difficult is it going to be for you to convince her to maintain and update the database? Is she comfortable with excel? It would definitely make it easier for her to cross-reference property listings, save her an abundance of time, and provide a consolidated source which she can easily manage.
ReplyDeleteIntroducing her to something like this would make it far easier for her query specific needs of a customer.
The Standardizing Services solution and the database solution would likely complement each other well. This would depend, to a point, on how many variables she wants to include with each property listing.
Seems like the three solutions are not so much competing as they address different issues. I would try to measure a combination of value add and ease of implementation depending on the time you have. That being said, all three seem fairly practical and easy to implement. I would be curious to know if part of the problem is she is a one woman shop, and know matter what is designed its not something she will keep up with. Something to consider anyways.
ReplyDelete1) Is the cause of the poor record keeping that she doesn't have time and think its not valuable or she does not have a mechanism? Depending upon the root cause I might re-jigger the solution. It has to be value add in terms of functionality if she is actually going to input the data. It sounds like a good idea if the root cause is that she either has never thought of it or just needs someone to sit down and design a template.
Number 2 sounds interesting. The language would have to be written so it does not make it seem like she is too busy to offer high quality customer service. I am always a big fan of surveys though.
Number 3 sounds like it would be really helpful. There is nothing more frustrating than a crapola website. If you guys have the skills and the knowledge you could do this. Or you could find websites which are pretty choice and then send them to firms to get some quotes on what they would cost to implement and maintain.