We have all been through the excitement of getting that alert via phone or email that we have a new lead on our site.  We immediately grin, day dream for a quick second of what it may hold in store for us, and head to the computer to check it out and make the sale.

But sometimes the excitement quickly turns into frustration because it doesn’t seem too likely we will be able to get in touch with J Smith at 555-1212 or be able to reach him or her at [email protected].

So then what?  Well, for most agents out there that is the time to curse under our breath and get back to what we were doing prior to the tease we just endured.

Guess what…It doesn’t have to be that way!  The road doesn’t have to end there if you are prepared with great chat software that allows you to see exactly what page each visitor is on and gives you a way to communicate with them directly on your site in real time via chat.

Gary Ashton of Nashville real estate is doing this brilliantly and converts leads that would have been lost forever in the bad lead bucket into real candidates, many of which his team successfully closes.   Gary absolutely swears by it and his team has been using it as a core tool for a number of years now.

Think about it, you may have a great site but visitors don’t necessarily know that right from the moment they arrive.  They may have given you dummy info to bypass your registration form thinking that they wouldn’t have any need for you or your site beyond the next few minutes.  But then something happens.  your site captivates and informs the visitor beyond their expectations and they start to realize that it must be a reflection of he professionalism of the agents behind it.  Suddenly, they actually would like to know more about a home or even schedule a showing.  Perhaps they even want to pick your brain.

Raise your hand if you have ever gotten a property inquiry or a showing request from a lead that originally left bad information.  I know mine is raised as high as it will go.  Sounds silly of customers to do, but the fact is that they may not even remember that they left you bad info.  You need to have a way to get in touch with these people and chat is the way to go.  You can ping them in real time and say something to the effect of “Hi.  I would love to set up that property showing for you.  Is 555-1212 the best number to reach you at or is there a better number?”  You get the picture.

If you leave chat off the table, potential real estate transactions are going with it.  And, of course, there are so many other uses for it, such as providing real time information to site visitors, proving to them how dedicated you are to your business by having somebody immediately available to them for questions, and establishing yourself as the neighborhood expert.

A popular service for you to look into for chat is zopim.com. Do any of you use it? Any other suggestions?