Collecting viewing feedback for the seller
How the Real estate pack records who viewed a property, turns the feedback call into a task, and sends the seller what the visitors said.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Real estate businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
"Nobody tells me anything." Every agency has heard it from a seller, and it is usually about viewings. The seller tidied the house, left for the afternoon, and came home to silence. Were there many people? Did anyone like it? Is the price wrong? A week later they are talking to another agency.
The feedback exists. It is in the agent's head, or in a notebook, or in a voice note that never got typed up. What goes missing is the follow-through: calling each visitor, writing down what they said, and passing it on to the seller while it still matters.
The Real estate pack in Achekam's Industry CRM turns that follow-through into a workflow. Here is how it works, and where your team's judgement still does the heavy lifting.
The viewing follow-up, start to finish
A listing in the pack carries its viewings and offers with it. After a viewing, the pack's viewing follow-up workflow does three things:
- records each visitor
- calls them for feedback
- sends the seller the visitors' feedback
Each of those is a step with an owner, rather than a good intention. Because a workflow creates its tasks stage by stage, the work arrives in order rather than as one long list on the first day.
Recording each visitor
The first step is a list of who came through the door. On a busy show day that can be a dozen groups in an afternoon, so record them as they arrive rather than reconstructing the list from memory that evening.
What is worth noting for each visitor:
- their name and a way to reach them
- whether they are a buyer, a tenant or another agent's client
- whether they have finance arranged or a property to sell first
- anything they said on the day that the seller should hear
Keep it to what you need to follow up and report. You do not need a visitor's identity number to ask them what they thought of the kitchen.
Calling for feedback as a task
The feedback call becomes a task for the agent. Tasks in the Industry CRM can have subtasks up to three levels deep, so a show day with many visitors can carry one subtask per visitor under a single "call for feedback" task. The agent works down the list, and anyone checking the task can see which calls are done and which are still waiting, which matters when the agent is off sick and the seller phones.
Make the call within a day or two, while the visitor still remembers the house. A short set of questions keeps the answers comparable from one visitor to the next:
- What did you like most about the property?
- What put you off, if anything?
- How does it compare with others you have seen?
- What do you think of the asking price?
- Would you like a second viewing?
Write the answers in the visitor's own words where you can. "Kitchen too small" is useful to a seller. "Not for them" is not.
Sending the seller the visitors' feedback
The last step of the workflow sends the seller the visitors' feedback. This is the moment that answers "nobody tells me anything", so it is worth getting the tone right.
Report what was said, not your gloss on it. If three groups mentioned the damp in the second bedroom, the seller needs to know that three groups mentioned it. Patterns matter more than single comments: one visitor who thinks the price is high is an opinion; most visitors saying it is the beginning of a price conversation.
Send it promptly after each round of viewings, even when the news is thin. A short report saying that two groups came, neither was ready to offer, and why, keeps a seller's trust better than a long silence.
Matching interested buyers by hand
Some visitors are not right for this property but are clearly buying. The pack does not match buyers automatically: a person filters the buyer briefs. The same applies in reverse. When a visitor says "too small, but we love the area", it is your agent who decides that they belong on another listing's call list.
The habit that makes this work is simple. After each feedback call, ask whether the visitor should become a buyer brief, or whether an existing brief needs updating with what you just learnt. The listing pipeline shows which of your other listings are on the market for them to see.
Keeping viewers' details to what is needed
Visitors give you their details so that you can follow up on a property. Use them for that, and keep them only as long as there is a reason to. Do not copy show-day lists into personal phones or private spreadsheets, where they cannot be found when someone asks what you hold about them. Your obligations under the privacy law that applies in your country are your agency's to meet; a short written rule for the office on what is recorded about viewers, and when it is deleted, is a good start. In South Africa that law is POPIA, and the Information Regulator is its regulator, covering the registration of information officers, complaints and enforcement.
Your next show day
Pick one listing with a show day coming up and run it through the follow-up properly: every visitor recorded, every call made, one report to the seller. Then ask the seller how it felt, and whether the report told them what they wanted to know. Their answer is the best guide to the next one. If your agency runs several entities, set the pack up in each, as described in keeping books for more than one agency entity.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
