Unleash Your Sales Potential With The Power Of AI
E-commerce has changed consumer expectations. Buying a home is not an exception. The National Association of Realtors reports that 97% of individuals searching for a home use online platforms.
In the buyer’s mind, the journey doesn’t start when they talk to a sales representative in a showroom; it started weeks or months ago when they browsed through your website and selected the homes they liked.
As a good salesperson, you know that effective sales is all about knowing the customer and meeting them where they are. But how do you do that if you haven’t had any interaction with them? How can you effectively listen to customers if you are unsure of their intentions?
The Challenge of Meeting Your Buyers Online
The online buying process can be overwhelming. There is way too much volume, thousands of websites offering listings that appear identical to one another for every customer. Most of the digital experiences that home builders provide today is generic. This is an issue since every home builder understands that a personalized experience is key to differentiating their business. However, the differentiation is only delivered by sales agent interaction.
Consumers need to put in a lot of work to weed out what’s relevant to them. Consequently, they might mistakenly perceive you as an unqualified buyer just because your experience online does not match what they are looking for.
The lack of personalization in the home builder’s online presence leads to issues such as low-quality leads, high-intent buyers feeling unengaged and disconnected with what a builder can truly offer, resulting in missed opportunities.
One of the strategies used to collect information on a buyer’s preferences is an online survey. As a sales professional, you cannot simply ask 15 standard questions when engaging with a customer. You inquire with curiosity. The next question is based on their response to the previous one.
What if you could achieve that through your website? What if you could ask your potential home buyer what is meaningful to them, allowing them to express themselves and say what they are looking for?
This is where an AI solution can empower both customers and the sales team and bridge the gap that exists in the home buying experience.
Advantages For Home Buyers
AI doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your current practices. Instead, it enhances your current processes to improve them for your customers. AI has the capacity to dynamically adapt to any specific buyer. Similar to how algorithms on platforms like YouTube or Netflix learn your preferences and recommend related content, the same concept can be applied to a potential home buyer on your website.
For instance, a survey powered by AI can inquire about the specific features that website visitors are looking for in a new home. According to their response, the AI adjusts the subsequent questions to dig deeper into the customers’ preferences. Once it has that information, the AI can dynamically adapt listings to highlight the features a home has that match what the potential home buyer is looking for.
Let’s say a customer is looking for a house with a spacious backyard. Once the AI detects interest in the survey, it will recommend homes to the buyer that have that specific feature. Not only that, but it will adapt the listings to reflect and highlight the specific features the buyer is looking for.
This way, the buyer feels like they have been heard, and at the same time, it empowers the sales agent to follow up on the reasons why they are moving much more effectively.
Empowering Sales Agents
Another problem that AI solves is that it can understand the behavioral patterns of customers to distinguish between those who are ready and able to make a purchase and those who are just browsing. AI can discern this simply from the way visitors navigate your website. With this information, the sales team can be much more effective.
Instead of receiving thousands of messages asking for more information from customers with varying degrees of interest, sales agents can now scroll through all the interested buyers and quickly isolate and prioritize whom to follow up with first. This allows them to better understand the customers’ needs, motivations, current dissatisfactions, and what compels them to take action. When initiating a conversation, sales agents can truly focus on the future promise.
How AI Enhances The 4:2 Formula
As we know, The 4:2 Formula serves as a strategic framework for sales discussions, guiding sales professionals to understand their current position and the direction they are headed in their conversations with potential buyers. AI can serve as a cheat sheet to help you prepare for this conversation. Let’s break it down.
Relationship
As we discussed, customers prefer to begin online because it is more convenient for them. So, AI helps create a digital experience that resonates with users, fostering a stronger sense of connection. They already feel that you are more trustworthy because you are starting that relationship with personalization.
Motivation
If you ask the right question, the buyer will share with you their motivation. They are trusting their sales agent to be their advisor and provide solutions to the problems they have. AI can gather that information so you can understand the customer’s motivation. By doing so, you can have a strategy prepared for when you engage with the client.
Current Dissatisfaction
With the insight you have, you can spend more time digging into the current dissatisfaction the home buyer has. That way, you can meet the customer where they are and have more time for meaningful conversations to understand what is not working for them in their current home.
Future Promise
AI can help you become much more effective at engaging the buyer. You’ll be prepared to respond to the “must-haves” the client tells you about because you already know all about them and can suggest potential homes that will meet their criteria.
With all the information provided by AI, the two vision agreements will naturally emerge in the conversation, leaving the customer feeling heard every step of the way, and the sales agent knowing precisely what their next move is.
If you want to learn more about how OpenHouse empowers sales representatives to reduce sales cycle time and increase productivity, don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected].
