One of the fun things about being an agent with ReferralCloud is getting an email saying you have a new inbound client referral. Having a way to manage and coordinate all your referrals makes tracking and making sure you get paid at closing easier. That’s one of the reasons we built ReferralCloud.
When you log into your account you’ll see a box that says Inbound Referrals. If you click on that block you’ll see all your inbound referrals, including any previous referrals. The referrals are listed in the order they were assigned to you, so the newest referrals will be at the top and the oldest will be at the bottom.
When you select the referral you’ll be able to see all information about the referral. The client name, phone number and email if provided by the referring agent. You’ll also be able to see any notes the other agent put in about the client. For example if the referral is a listing referral, you’ll see the address of the seller. If it is a buyer referral, you’ll see notes about where the buyer is looking to buy, their price range as well as time frame. In some cases the agent won’t put much in the platform, and you’ll just have to call them to find out, or just call the client directly.
Remember when you call the client you can just let them know that you were referred to them by the other agent. Since ReferralCloud is a coordinator, the client won’t know who we are. The easiest thing is just to talk to them just like you would any agent referral. “Hi Mr Client this is Imma Agent and I was referred by Yerold Agent who helped you buy a house in Springfield. They said you needed to sell your home in Bananaville and I wanted to know a time we could meet to get that process started”. You can use any script you want, including Tom Ferry, Buffini, or any other script that you feel will get you in rapport with the client and also get you an appointment with them.
One of the best features of the platform is the notes section.
When you enter a note, you can see the date and time the note was entered, who made the note, as well as the information that was given. This is a great tool to not only communicate with the other agent, but also to allow the ReferralCloud team to help track everything.
Once the referral closes, the agent has a week to send the 30% referral fee to ReferralCloud so we can then pay the agent that referred the client their 25%. Also once a referral has closed, both agents, the agent that did the closing as well as the agent that gave the referral, are now at the highest priority to get another client! Its not only part of the reward system of using the platform, but its just the way things should be. Agents who give referrals should also get at least as many referrals as they give.
Keep in mind that because all real estate markets are not the same, there are some markets that have more people leaving (sellers) and others that have more people arriving (sellers). We have found that about half of the referrals so far are for listings, and the other half buyers. For now there is no way to preference whether you get a buyer or seller referral. When we get a referral in your market, and see that you are the next agent in line, we will call you and make sure its a client you want to work with. If not, you can pass on them and we will just assign it to another agent. You won’t lose your place at the front of the line either. We will just keep calling until we get a client that suits your business needs.
Keep in mind that as of this blog post, we are still a new and growing company and that you might not get a reciprocal referral immediately after you submit one. In fact it could take a while as we onboard more agents, and even large franchises. Our future goal is that we provide referrals back within a week and that those agents that are using the platform regularly will have a constant stream of inbound business.