According to Professor Albert Mehrabian 93% of our communication involves non-verbal cues and facial expressions. 55% of communication is visual (body language, eye contact) and 38% is vocal (pitch, speed, volume, tone of voice) and only 7% is attributed to words. Experts in non-verbal communication claim that the studies are inaccurate, but lately more and more people prefer to watch a video instead of reading an article – why? Because they saves time, apprehend information easier and are able to make a judgment faster due to the non-verbal cues and emotional attachment.

Moreover, when we communicate over email, text message and phone, the chance of messages to get misinterpreted is higher. In the Internet people interact mainly through text: chat and email, which makes it more difficult to build the necessary trust between customer and business because all those non-linguistic cues that help build and maintain confidence are lost. The sense of a personal connection is never truly established or maintained.

So let’s face the reality, face-to-face communication engages more human senses. It is no secret that a few of the reasons a real estate agent to request a meeting with a potential client are to establish that personal connection, understand better the buyers/sellers preferences, gain information by reading the non-verbal cues and create an unique relationship with the customer.

But is there a way to bring that online? Yes, there is. With LeadSecure we enable real estate professionals to insert a human, personal connection back into business. While not neglecting the importance of face-to-face communication, video communication online can solve the problems with misinterpretation, personal connection and lack of non-behavior cues. Here are three good reasons why video communication online is important for the real estate industry.

1. Build relationships, establish and increase trust – A simple telephone call will tell you very little about the potential business relationship you are looking to start. People want to feel special and eye contact is a crucial factor in that process. Participants can align words with visual contact, which enhances the process of establishing yourself as an expert. Moreover, traditional communication channels are transactional ones. Live video chat help customers to put a face on your brand, makes the customer more comfortable and increases their trust.

2. Remotely showcase a property - The real estate industry is very visual one. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then video should be a 1,000,000. With LeadSecure technology a real estate professional is able to remotely showcase a property to a customer who can get the feeling of the inside and outside of the property and answer questions in real-time. The best part of it is that we don’t require any additional technology besides a smartphone, our application (Android and Apple) and your unique short URL. Which leads to the next point.

3. It is cost effective and increases productivity – As a real estate agent you spent some of your time arranging meetings with potential buyers, sellers. Yet, that time could be spend in a more productive way. Video communication is a cost effective way to see and meet with your short and long-distance customers.

Can you smile over the phone, I doubt that?

We can make an analogy to this with the concept of going fishing. When a person goes fishing, he spends time to prepare, spends money on equipment, dedicates a specific time frame for the activity, but if the person is not paying attention at the key moment when the fish bites, all this is for nothing. It is the same with online leads. You can do everything right to generate the lead and funnel it into your grasp, but if you don’t respond when the lead is interested, you will lose it and your efforts would have been for nothing. Hence, it is vital that if a person is going to put out all the effort to generate a lead, that they address it properly in a timely manner.

According to studies conducted by Professor Oldroyd a Faculty Fellow at MIT and Inside Sales there is a direct correlation between the speeds of response to your online inquires and the results of your online efforts. Leads convert 22 times more often when you make contact within the first five minutes. Contact rate significantly drop after five minutes – 100 times decrease from 5 minute to 30 minutes.

Simply put: the faster you connect with your incoming lead, the higher chance you have to capture it. This will result in a much better return on your online marketing efforts and in turn help increase your overall revenue.

So how to convert more web leads?

Make sure that there is someone in your organization available as often as possible. You never know when a lead will come in. – Your customers are at the peak of their interest when they are approaching you. They are eager to get more information and you need to capitalize on this by being available to serve their needs. This is the key moment when you first establish a relationship with them and as we all know, first impressions are key. LeadSecure allows you to make sure you establish the best relationship possible by offering instant connectivity through a video chat. This allows you to establish a more trusting relationship than a regular phone call ever would.

We can’t be available 24/7, this is a give in, but we can take steps to make sure we still have a high chance of retaining a lead. For those moments that you are not there, make sure you have a well-crafted follow-up process which makes it easy for the lead to reconnect with you at a later time. LeadSecure has an offline messaging feature just for this purpose. We allow the customer to leave a message with any questions they may have and set an appropriate time and day to be contacted.

If you are a brokerage with multiple agents, passing the lead to an available agent is a great way to make sure that it stays in your organization. LeadSecure offers call routing as an excellent opportunity to react in a timely manner. If one of your agents is busy with a client, you can easily re-route the call to an available one. You can also incentivize agents by routing the incoming leads to the best performing agents.

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