The age-old adage of “work smarter, not harder” has never been more relevant. With technology that helps optimize essentially every facet of business, we’re inundated with programs, systems and opportunities to squeeze more productivity out of every waking—and even sleeping—moment.
At Zillow, we understand the advantage technology gives you in the real estate business. We founded our company on it. But we also understand that when it comes to marketing, pipeline management and lead conversion, our customers have different needs and preferences. We created our Tech Connect program to embrace these variations, enabling everyone who uses Zillow to sync our offering with their preferred marketing systems and online presence.
Zillow Tech Connect: CRM
Launched just over a year ago, Zillow Tech Connect: CRM has grown to more than 40 partner companies across marketing and contact management. We saw the need to support different technology platforms because agents on Zillow—both free and paid advertisers—were using different vendors. We didn’t want to force agents to use our CRM offering, which may not be the best solution for their business, so we opened it up to a diverse group of partners. The response on both sides of the fence has been phenomenal.
Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews
In early November 2014, we launched Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews, a program enabling brokers, agents and MLSs to display Zillow reviews on their websites. Given the time investment for every Zillow review, including the agent’s initial request, the client’s authorship, the fraud filtering and, finally, the verification by a Zillow employee, we believe that agents and brokers who use Zillow should also be able to leverage this powerful marketing content on their own sites.
Windermere Real Estate, one of the largest independent real estate companies in the nation, was the first brokerage to make Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews available on Windermere agent websites. “We are excited that clients will have the ability to learn about and review our agents through this Windermere-Zillow co-branded interface,” says OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, adding, “It will be a great enhancement to our agents’ online marketing and will add a level of transparency that consumers these days expect.”
Moxi Works, a real estate technology company, also partnered with Tech Connect: Reviews to expand their clients’ options. “We are very excited to offer our brokerage customers the chance to add Zillow agent reviews to their agents’ websites,” says CEO York Baur. “Recent research proves how valuable reviews are in helping agents win business, and Zillow has simplified the process, allowing us to automate access to this information. It will bring an immense amount of value to brokerages and their agents to be able to showcase the great things their customers have been saying about them.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg for Zillow Tech Connect. We want to offer every customer and every partner the best Zillow experience available by working with service providers who build great tools, enabling advertisers to leverage hard-earned content on Zillow. We are continuing to improve on and expand our offerings and look forward to sharing these developments with you in the future.
Chris Crocker is vice president, Strategic Partnerships, Zillow. For more information, email partners@zillow.com.
For more information, visit www.zillow.com.
