3 Pillars of Successful Tech Adoption for Real Estate Teams

Modern technology is revolutionizing real estate at an exponential rate. We’re seeing powerful new CRMs, transaction management software that changes the way deals are closed, virtual and augmented reality–supported home showings, and artificial intelligence helping agents build relationships with clients. All this tech is enabling the real estate industry to make data-driven decisions and increase the relevance of personalized recommendations simultaneously.

While beneficial in the long run, these technologies can drastically change every facet of the real estate business and, in doing so, might cause some unintended turbulence within growing real estate teams. Some are already on board, seeing the benefits these new technologies can offer. Others aren’t so sure. With any major shift in process, you may be hesitant to change the status quo. Fortunately, there are three key pillars that can increase successful tech adoption in your organization no matter how technology-averse your team may be.

1. Focus on framing the opportunity. Asking your team to overhaul critical aspects of how they work will likely trigger some pushback. However, this is your chance to encourage a shift in mindset. Rather than focusing on the perceived loss of a current process, get them excited about the potential of a new one. For example, a new marketing automation software can help keep their leads warm and deliver educational emails without the administrative time that manual efforts require. Once you’ve invested in a new tool, document how it will streamline workloads and how to use it properly before your team attempts to use it. The goal is to nudge them toward being confident users; by padding their onboarding with clear directions about the intention and process of the tool, your team will be off to a positive start.
2. Build a better learning environment. Ensure your team gets the training they need by delivering it on their terms—making training available where, when, and how they want it. This means no more uninspired “how to” documents. With the convenience of digital training manuals and the capability of storing, organizing, and managing information in the cloud, your team can access information in more engaging formats, such as text, audio, and video. You can also “gamify” training by adding quizzes at the end of each training or build in feedback loops so they can ask questions in real time. By providing the same documented training to all team members, you’ll guarantee a consistent experience and be able to get new agents up to speed quickly.
3. Give your team ownership. Training doesn’t have to fall completely on your shoulders as the team leader or manager. Most technology providers today will equip you with a customer success manager who will help onboard your team. As your team goes through this process, empower them to document procedures. This gives them ownership and improves engagement throughout the process. This level of ownership helps create internal advocates who will get other team members excited about the tech and all of its capabilities. Divide this up amongst the team and encourage them to get creative with videos, images, screencasts, or audio. In doing this, they’ll be motivated to train one another on the areas they covered. It also helps ensure that knowledge isn’t all housed in one person’s head, which can leave you in a vulnerable position if they ever move on to another company.

New training software solutions also enable businesses to easily assign future training, manage onboarding automatically, and instantly see who has completed a training plan. This helps to identify who is up to speed and who needs that extra nudge. By tackling a new implementation together, your team will be more likely to embrace onboarding and help their colleagues get up to speed.

The winners in real estate moving forward will increasingly rely on the collaboration between people and technology to deliver tangible results. Amidst this industry shift, using training and documentation software is one concrete way to ensure everyone is along for the ride.