The BrightBlog. » CRM

Interactive CRM gets real (estate)

Michael Worthington — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:33:37 +0000

While Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a fairly generic concept of information capture for customer service, every industry implements it in a way tailored to their unique needs. However, commercial and residential real estate hasn’t unlocked the code on leveraging CRM in a way that provides buyers and sellers a common platform for exchanging sales information and building relationships while simultaneously capturing all interaction for business intelligence. This is a bold, new concept – a fusion of digital marketing, sales force automation (SFA) and CRM. BrightDoor has unlocked this code (no pun intended) just at the right time – when the industry is clamoring for cost-effective ways to attract buyers. We’ve coined our novel approach “Interactive CRM” or iCRM.

With iCRM, you can unify your sales and marketing under a common platform. Launch email marketing campaigns. Entice web visitors to register through interactive site plan exploration. Schedule community tours. Provide online follow-up through personal web portals. Track and manage the complete customer experience. All from a single Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. What makes BrightDoor’s iCRM more compelling than ever? The answer is as close as your newspaper or TV.

With the global market in crisis mode, change is undeniable. Real estate buyers will be forever transformed – using the internet as THE key method of analysis and decision-making. They’ll be scrutinizing every purchase. Why would real estate be any different? It won’t be. As a builder or developer, it is imperative that they embrace the change and seek out new tools to restore their ability to effectively market and sell their communities.

We believe BrightDoor iCRM provides a compelling and cost effective way from which to rebuild your sales and marketing approach. I encourage you to learn more at Brightdoor.com and start a conversation with us.

Sales Efficiency 2.0

Michael Worthington — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:19:24 +0000

One of the key concerns that every real estate developer is battling in today’s market reality is optimizing the effectiveness of their sales teams. Although the current climate is challenging and everyone looks forward to better days ahead, the fact is that a focus on better tools and process should be a factor in any selling environment.

When Deven and I started BrightDoor in 2005, we believed that an integrated approach to real estate sales and marketing was a natural evolution from the analog, fragmented communications that ruled the day. In the early days, developers categorized us as “nice to have” technology that provided a “wow” factor in sales centers. Today, customers view us as an essential solution, enabling lead generation and daily business management. Developers all over the globe are now digesting the reality that CRM is important but only if it’s integrated with all key sales and marketing efforts.

As I write this, I am on the final leg of a return trip from Dubai. I’ve just spent a week with developers of some of the most grand scale commercial and residential projects in the world. Guess what? They are dealing with many of the same challenges as our U.S. customers. At the heart of it all is providing sales efficiency at all levels – from moving web leads into the sale process more quickly to giving agents better tools for matching buyers with ideal products to improving the ability to track and measure sales progress.

Regardless of where I’ve traveled recently, one theme has been clear – the adoption of a fully integrated CRM solution is the most urgent need in optimizing sales efficiency and improving sales velocity.

At BrightDoor, we look forward to servicing the industry during this important transition.

BrightBase Web Services API May Update

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:02:13 +0000

Greetings BrightBase Web Service API Users:

This update includes a description of the BrightBase Web Services API changes that we plan in our upcoming release, planned for Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 11:59pm ET pending certification by our Quality Assurance group. This update summarizes enhancements to that release only. If you are not the implementer of the BrightBase Web Services API, please forward this to the appropriate person.

FindObjects Update
We have enhanced the FindObjects (and, as a result, the FindObject) Web method to return partial objects. Many of you commented on how you often just need bits of data and not the entire object, which can be a heavy payload. Full object retrieval is still fully supported and no code changes are needed. But now, the BrightDoor Query Language supports a syntax that looks like the following:

select p.Id, p.Name, p.UpdateDate,p.ListPrice, p.ListDate,p.ProductStatus.Id, p.Description from Product p

Please note, that in the above example a entity object is still returned. So for values that you do not explicitly select they are defaulted to their natural state. This may mean you have an object with seemingly invalid data, especially with dates and Booleans. So keep this in mind. However, the advantage is a much smaller XML payload and this should be a big benefit to those who just needs slices of data for your other business needs.

Notification Technology
Our last update mentioned the concept of notifications when objects are created and/or updated. We have selected the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) which will allow developers to subscribe to messages based on a set of business rules defined within BrightBase. This enhancement will roll out later this year and we welcome your input on how to best make use of this technology and this concept. If you are unfamiliar with SQS, please check out http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Queue-Service-home-page/b?ie=UTF8&node=13584001.