When Shaina Moats was showing her client homes in an Austin, Texas, suburb she was unfamiliar with, she turned to Local Insights to brush up on the area.
“Before I met my client at the first property, I found several insights that educated me on the three different neighborhoods we were seeing that day, gave me information on the water resources in the area and offered a look at the local activities,” says Moats, who has closed 100 units at $30 million in volume and $900,000 in GCI in 2018. “At the end of our showings, my client said, ‘Wow, Shaina! I didn’t realize you knew this area so well.’ It made me look like a rock star.”
Local Insights is a Keller Cloud application within Command – a real estate-specific operating system built in house – that crowdsources information on neighborhoods across the country from agents across Keller Williams, creating a proprietary database. If an agent is new to an area – like Moats was with her client – they can check out what others have to say about local amenities. Then they can share that feedback with their clients and add a thumbs-up to the insight or comment with their own perspective. It allows agents to leverage each other’s knowledge to become instant area experts.
“Local Insights has been a game changer for me,” Moats says. “I work about a 30-mile radius around Austin. There is no way I can be the hyperlocal expert in all of those areas. When I have a listing appointment in an area I’m not familiar with or even a buyer interested in a new neighborhood, I open Kelle – my virtual assistant – and look for insights. It gives me a quick education … things that only a local expert would know.”
Because Command is fully integrated with Kelle, agents can ask the assistant to add an insight at any time and from any location. Insights can also be updated and edited, so if a business adds a play area or if an HOA renovates their neighborhood clubhouse, agents can update it in a flash.
In addition to giving clients a fuller glimpse into life in different neighborhoods, sharing insights has a business benefit as well. Eventually, the more insights an agent shares, the higher they will appear in KW’s agent-to-agent Referrals search results.
Local Insights is just one more example of how Keller Williams is using technology to create a differentiated agent, and by extension, consumer experience. In 2018, Kelle and Referrals were brought into general availability after a rigorous product development process called Labs. This year, agents can expect to have access to Command.
Moats is ecstatic.
“One of the unique things about Command is that it’s an all-in-one solution,” she says. “When my husband and I evaluated our technology resources in 2017, we were using 37 different programs and platforms to run our team. With Command, we will be able to reduce our technology expenses as we eliminate a majority of the tech platforms we use. However, the game changer is not necessarily the features it has now or even what it will have in the future. The best thing about Command is that it is the foundation for us to add new features and processes quickly, therefore constantly staying ahead of our competition. Command, fed by powerful AI and a huge data set, will give us as agents the lead we need to take market share.”
For Moats, Command also gives her an incentive and an opportunity to dream bigger for her business.
“Our profit-and-loss statement will almost immediately see a jump in profitability, allowing us to move those funds to lead generation,” she says. “This will allow the agents with our company more opportunity. We’ve set higher goals for 2019 and will do the same in 2020 – knowing that Command will give us an edge in the marketplace, allowing us to move faster and focus our attention squarely on providing the utmost in customer service.”
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“Local Insights has been a game changer for me,” Moats says. “I work about a 30-mile radius around Austin. There is no way I can be the hyperlocal expert in all of those areas. When I have a listing appointment in an area I’m not familiar with or even a buyer interested in a new neighborhood, I open Kelle – my virtual assistant – and look for insights. It gives me a quick education … things that only a local expert would know.”
“One of the unique things about Command is that it’s an all-in-one solution,” she says. “When my husband and I evaluated our technology resources in 2017, we were using 37 different programs and platforms to run our team. With Command, we will be able to reduce our technology expenses as we eliminate a majority of the tech platforms we use. However, the game changer is not necessarily the features it has now or even what it will have in the future. The best thing about Command is that it is the foundation for us to add new features and processes quickly, therefore constantly staying ahead of our competition. Command, fed by powerful AI and a huge data set, will give us as agents the lead we need to take market share.”