A chatbot for real estate: what can it do?
Alexander Wijninga
| 2 min
It was one of the most criticised items during the elections of the Dutch Lower House of Parliament: the housing market. Still today it’s a hot news item, with politicians and talk show hosts alike expressing their strong opinions - and for good reason. Historically consumers had their choice among 5 to 10 houses, today that’s only 2. Inventory is shrinking, but demand is peaking.
The housing market being this hot means the real estate sector is busier than ever. More inquiries about houses for sale, more people seeking advice on a mortgage, and thus: more time spent with people. Chatbots can lend an extremely helpful hand in answering frequently asked questions, and since they’re automated, things are that much more efficient. This blog explains how real estate agents can use a chatbot.
Answering frequently asked questions
There will always be the same questions that get asked time and time again. Questions like “What should I watch out for when buying a house?” or “Where can I register for a property in a new development?”. Since the chatbot is powered by AI, the customer can use a variety of different phrases and the chatbot will still be able to provide the answer.
Planning appointments
As a real estate agent, you probably get a ton of emails and phone calls to set up an appointment. What if the chatbot could take care of planning appointments for you? The chatbot can plan a time to view an open house, a home inspection or a video consultation for first-time homebuyers. The chatbot saves the details of the person booking the appointment and can book the appointment directly in the real estate agent’s calendar.
Providing advice
When people are looking for a new home, they’re often looking for personal advice - for example advice about applying for a mortgage. The chatbot can do more than just answer frequently asked questions, but also transfer conversations to human agents. They can continue the conversation and provide 1:1 advice to the individual. Since they’re using chat, the agent and the chatbot can handle multiple conversations simultaneously.
24/7 availability
Since many people can only go to see a property after office hours, they end up on the real estate agent’s website in the evenings and on the weekends. Those times are probably the times that you and the team aren’t around. That’s a bummer, not only will people need to wait, you could be missing out on the perfect client. With a chatbot, you can increase your team’s availability to 24/7. You can also have the chatbot request contact details so that you can easily continue the conversation the next morning.
Example of a chatbot for real estate agents
We know this all sounds great - but how does it actually work? One of our customers, vb&t Makelaars, uses a chatbot to plan appointments, provide information about houses for sale and for rent, and more! The vb&t chatbot is a total success: more than 95% of all online conversations are independently handled by their chatbot. That means that only 5% of online conversations require intervention by a human agent.
Want to learn more about a chatbot for real estate?
Curious what it might be like to have a chatbot for your real estate agency? Are you curious what other roles a chatbot can play? Check out this article.
Related articles
Best practices
GPT-3: The Latest Advancement in AI Customer Service - Impacts, Risks, and Opportunities
GPT-3, the latest version of OpenAI's 'Generative Pretrained Transformer' model, is a significant development in the world of artificial intelligence and chatbots. It has the ability to engage in human-like conversations and perform...
Best practices
Everything you need to know about a chatbot!
Do you remember Chatman? The Hi chatbot, that worked super fast with MSN? If you don’t remember the chatbot, maybe you still remember the jingle from the commercial. The Hi marketing campaign in 2005 unlocked a new era. “The buddy-bot is...