RISMEDIA, Nov. 12, 2007-Sage Software announced the new ACT! by Sage for Real Estate 2008 (10.0) and ACT! by Sage Premium for Real Estate 2008 (10.0) contact and customer management solutions during its Sage Summit customer conference at McCormick West Convention Center in Chicago, IL. According to the company, ACT! for Real Estate solutions help residential real estate agents and brokers organize their buyer, seller, and property information in one place, communicate effectively through custom flyers and letter templates, and manage property showing, closing, and reporting activities.
The National Association of Realtors® 2007 Realtor Technology Survey shows significant demand for sales productivity tools. The survey found that 80% of sales agents and associate brokers rated the value of technology supplied by their broker as being extremely valuable or somewhat valuable, and 65% responded yes when asked if they wanted their broker to expand the amount of technology offered. Sixty-four percent also said they communicate with past clients quarterly or more often.
“ACT! for Real Estate equips real estate professionals with the tools needed to manage client communications and become more successful in an increasingly competitive market,” explained David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager for Sage CRM Solutions. “Cultivating quality referrals is a catalyst for selling more homes, or more of anything, and with ACT! – regardless of what industry you use it in – productively managing valuable sales relationships is the means to that end.”
For Individuals and Teams
According to Sage, ACT! for Real Estate centralizes an agent’s, broker’s, or team’s information for easy organization and reference. Users access contact information using an interface designed specifically for residential real estate professionals, can keep detailed notes and information on listed properties, track appointments and to-dos, and can attach critical documents like inspection reports, house photos, and MLS listings. MLS home pages can be launched from within ACT! for Real Estate for access to searches performed and property listings sent.
The company says that ACT! for Real Estate is ideal for individual real estate professionals, small teams of up to ten networked users, or large disparate workforces that do not require data sharing. ACT! Premium for Real Estate meets the needs of larger workgroups and teams of real estate professionals3 and provides additional team features including group scheduling and automatic Outlook® calendar sync, advanced opportunity tracking and customization capabilities, and team reporting.
New interactive ACT! for Real Estate dashboards provide users with a comprehensive, graphical view of key information including activities, property listings, and sales opportunities, and allow users to drill down into the information to take further action. ACT! for Real Estate dashboards display individual user information, while ACT! Premium for Real Estate dashboards display team information to help managers set company sales targets and gauge individual and group performance status.
ACT! for Real Estate solutions integrate with everyday applications including Microsoft® Office applications like Outlook for e-mail communications, Word to write letters, and Excel® for importing or exporting contact and sales opportunity lists for analysis.
Additional features help agents, brokers, and teams:
– Schedule calls, meetings, and to-dos using one of more than 20 activities including prospecting and marketing, showing properties, listing properties, closing tasks, and more, for better tracking and analysis of time spent.
– Track property listings with three new real estate-specific sales processes to better understand progress toward property closings, property purchases, and property sales.
– Collect more complete information about a property out-of-the-box for both interested buyers and sellers using expanded real estate-specific data fields. Users can track details including MLS numbers, closing information, property specs buyers are interested in, and complete specs on properties listed.
– Use real estate-specific flyers to effectively advertise properties. Populate flyers with a photo, detailed property description, list price, and more using data from ACT! for Real Estate fields. For Sale, Open House, and Home Feature Sheet flyers are included.
– Use 30 letter templates customized for real estate, such as letters to buyers, for-sale-by-owner, lead follow-up, open house follow-up, referral letters, letters to sellers, and public relations campaigns for the holidays.
– Run one of 40 standard reports, 20 focused on sales opportunities, or one of six custom real estate reports including Buyer Completed Activities (summary and detailed), Seller Completed Activities (summary and detailed), Activities by Type, and Activities by Contact, to make educated business decisions.
– Synchronize ACT! for Real Estate contact, calendar, and activity information with mobile devices via Palm OS® and Pocket PC links, or BlackBerry®.
– Assign up to five security levels, including manager and restricted, to team members, allowing access to data and features depending on user levels.
For more information, visit www.act.com.
