Introduction

How has COVID-19 changed your property business this year?
For some letting agents, it’s had a minimal impact as workers were already operating remotely, for others, they’ve had to change the way they interact with customers. In contrast, some have closed entirely until the pandemic is over.

While the world waits for a vaccine, business continuity has become a top priority for many landlords and property businesses, but this doesn’t mean making compromises and cutting corners for a temporary solution. These measures won’t help your employees perform their role to the best of the ability and will leave your customers frustrated.

49% of the UK workforce is now doing their job from home,

The Office for National Statistics reported that 49% of the UK workforce is now doing their job from home, and this number will only increase. So to accommodate this new way of working, what do you need for a business continuity plan to keep your letting or estate agent business operating effectively – if not better – while your colleagues work from home? Let’s take a look at how cloud and unified communication can help your business, employees, and customers in this new world.

Why You Need a New Business Continuity Plan?

Business continuity plans are not a new concept as they’ve been designed and actioned during events involving floods, earthquakes, and cyber-attacks. However, COVID-19 has tested these measures significantly as many components of the plan are for shorter periods, not for lengthy lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing.

While workarounds and temporary measures might have helped keep the lights on during the first few months, they’re not sustainable solutions for the long-term. With no clear end in sight of what life will look like after the pandemic, now is the time to start building a more robust infrastructure that supports your workforce and satisfies your customer’s expectations.

For your property business, this means having the appropriate technology to enable seamless transitions between the office and the household. It also requires communication solutions that make it simple for employees to interact with their peers and close deals with customers. You’re no longer planning for business continuity to last weeks or a month but instead months at a time and possibly a year.

Why is Cloud Communication Important?

Life at work was already starting to move away from the office, but COVID-19 accelerated this progress, and now the ability to work remotely is essential for businesses to continue operating. But this doesn’t just mean having a laptop, internet connection, and a mobile phone.

It requires an agile, flexible, and responsive infrastructure that can enable teammates to handle any enquiry at any time from anywhere. It is why more companies are turning to cloud-based communication solutions to meet these needs.

No matter whether you’re a letting agent, estate agent or landlord, communication is vital to the success of your business. It would help if you had the right tools at your disposal to handle a viewing enquiry while you’re out on the road or respond to an urgent customer query immediately rather than waiting to get back to your desk in the office.

Leveraging cloud VOIP solutions helps employees successfully handle these tasks from any location and meets many of your new business continuity plan requirements.

How Can Unified Communication Help Your Employees?

While your employees need to be able to interact with customers efficiently, it’s just as vital that they can collaborate with teammates just as effortlessly so that it doesn’t impact productivity or their experience. As much as many people are enjoying the flexibility that comes with working outside of the office, it’s only beneficial if they can still work together seamlessly with their teammates.

A recent CNBC survey found that 38% of employees are happier with their jobs compared to previous months. Engaged employees mean they’re 59% less likely to resign and achieve 21% greater profitability compared to their competitors who are still working using traditional methods.

But one frustrating component can be requiring multiple applications and programs to have a simple conversation with their peers. Instead, unified communication systems help future-proof the employee collaboration experience and make them more productive as there’s only one platform required for voice, video, team sharing, and conferences.

These systems already exist and are already helping property businesses collaborate more effectively compared to relying solely on fixed-line phone calls. Working on documents, organising contracts, and coordinating team discussions with disparately located teammates is much more effective and powerful with unified communication solutions (UCaaS).

A unified communication solution doesn’t just benefit employees. It allows letting agents and property professionals interact differently with their customers utilising voice, video, and messaging services.

What are the Benefits to the Customer?

A UCaaS solution doesn’t just benefit employees; it gives estate agents, letting agents, property professionals a new dimension to conversations with customers. It makes collaboration richer by empowering users with voice, video, screen sharing and instant messaging capabilities letting you use the right communication medium from one platform get the right message across to your clients instantly.

Dialog360s UCaaS platform powered by Cisco technology lets you integrate your business apps, CRM and emails giving your calls more context.

The days of returning to the office to a pile of messages are no more thanks to unified communication solutions allowing employees to take calls from clients and close sales how they want and from where they want. It also makes viewing houses much easier by utilising video options to provide tours of homes and give a face to face experience.

Customers can also get their essential documents quicker through file-sharing options, to help speed up the overall process compared to waiting for them to get posted.

How Do You Get Started?

Unified communication systems are no longer optional for your letting agent or estate agent to succeed in this current climate. It’s now a core requirement for your business continuity plan and is quickly becoming an expectation from customers.

The benefits go beyond improved employee experience and enhanced customer satisfaction. They help keep your business operating to its best potential in these trying times and even excel your business to new heights.

Getting started is the easy part. Just get in contact with us to learn more about how you can reap the rewards of UcaaS, cloud communication, and VOIP in your property business.