When new leads are received to a real estate agency or sales team, they have to be distributed in a way that satisfies all participating agents and representatives. This is lead routing, and finding the most optimized way of doing it is more difficult than you might think. Read on to learn more about the world of real estate lead routing and 5 different types of lead routing assignment rules you can choose to adopt as your own.
Common Real Estate Lead Routing Rules
The most common lead routing assignment rules are usually to distribute the incoming leads according to territory assignment or availability. While these can work, there are some flaws with them that some other assignment rules don’t have.
For instance, just being in closer proximity to a lead doesn’t draw on any advantage or reason that the closest agent might have for being entrusted that person. The reasoning here is that the agent will have a better understanding of the approximate physical landscape and housing market of the area, but this is neither the strongest factor to consider nor the most accurate.
Routing your real estate leads by availability is just as flawed, ignoring any connection that other agents may have with the lead and instead rewarding only those who are first in line.
Different Lead Routing Rules to Help You
There are many different lead routing rules that you can choose to use, or even experiment with. Consider these 5 other sets of lead routing assignments that may fit your needs better than proximity or availability:
Real Estate Lead Routing by CRM
Lead routing by CRM means that a lead may already have a connection with one of your representatives, as noted in the CRM system in-place. In this case, it is better to give the lead to that representative because they are likely to have introduced that lead in the first place. Agents will be able to smoothly transition the lead to the next stage of the pipeline with this routing in place.
Real Estate Lead Routing by Use Case
Routing your real estate leads by use case means that your SME representatives will be matched with leads that allow them to express their strengths more clearly. This lead routing rule can be quite effective if you have specialized areas of focus, but the downside is that some areas will be more popular than others, so it’s good to have all agents be able to take leads from a general pool and then apply use cases to agents as they are needed.
Real Estate Lead Routing by Potential Deal Value
Routing by potential deal value ensures that the very best representatives are the ones rewarded with the biggest potential deals. While this method is very accessible, it has major criticisms. If your agency structure can support this inequality for better overall performance of the company, then having this kind of routing is highly effective. Otherwise, a fairer assignment rule is recommended.
Real Estate Lead Routing by Lead Score
This assignment rule scores potential leads based on any number of behaviors or characteristics. This value-weighted system then assigns leads based on these scores. Those who opt for this set of rules often put the lead with the greatest weight with the most skilled agent available, so as to ensure the lead is secured. This routing assignment is similar to deal value but isn’t strictly based on monetary value, and has a better element of justification as for why some agents will receive better leads than others.
Real Estate Lead Routing by Automated Lead Distribution Software
This is quickly becoming the way most people will choose to go and isn’t mutually exclusive. This is of course because most software is able to automatically distribute leads based on an internal data comparison between the lead and all available representatives. When it is the software making optimized choices for the benefit of the company, then the human element and whether such decision making is fair or not becomes blurred and the result more easily accepted.
What Do the Best Lead Routing Assignment Rules Look Like?
While there is no “best” one-size-fits-all routing rule, the better ones are all likely to be fusions that attempt to capitalize on the strengths of the assignments and reduce the weaknesses that they all have. Using automated lead distribution software is great if it is going to be making decisions based on deeper connective factors between the pool of leads and representatives.
No matter which is chosen, it shouldn’t be set up in such a way so that only the top performers get the valued leads, and team morale suffers as a result. It should attempt be as fair as possible while also pairing people with their strengths.
