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HelloAlex is an AI-powered lead cultivation app for real estate agents.
Platforms: Browser; mobile-optimized
Ideal for: Teams and agents with multiple online lead sources; those looking to better manage and qualify leads
Top selling points
- Multiple lead source integration
- Rapid new lead follow-up
- “Old” lead campaigns
- Ongoing outreach after securing lead
Top concerns
I think this is a tool best suited for those with a number of web-based lead sources. Referral-based agents probably wouldn’t realize as much value.
What you should know
As valuable as a lead is to an agent, the real money is made in the follow-up.
And because agents are leveraging more and more ways to garner leads, from portals to postcards, the risk of botching the follow-up grows even greater.
Inman Connect (January 22-26, 2018, New York City) Startup Alley participant HelloAlex is your lead safety net, ensuring no interested party goes unanswered, even when you sleep.
The software funnels leads from an array of sources into its artificial intelligence (AI) webbing and then broadcasts to them a multi-channel campaign within minutes of registration.
A lead’s social profile is produced using only a phone number (and big data), from which he or she can be tracked within your contact record until the point of closing, or until you decided they’re no longer worth your time.
When a lead is captured, HelloAlex sends the person a Facebook Messenger chat, an email, a text, a postcard and a ringless voicemail.
Each message can be unique, and is best designed to secure leads’ interest, qualify them and get them to commit. The same campaign can be launched after a phone call from a yard sign.
Those steps are what HelloAlex considers part of its “first lifecycle” of lead management.
The second lifecycle involves periodic post-closing follow-up, such as birthdays and closing anniversaries.
As a software, HelloAlex is really sweet, and the user interface (UI) is superb.
They’ve developed a dashboard that sharply manages a lot of potential visual distraction, as it ultimately serves as a conversation manager. A cluttered dashboard is equivalent to the white noise of a coffee shop — communicating above it can make things difficult or annoying.
It strikes a nice balance of color-coded sectioning and stark divisions of content.
Contacts are provided scores as the conversation progresses, and you’ll never have to look for a way to reach them, or how they came into being.
The AI engine can also execute cold lead campaigns and create and run re-targeted Facebook display ads. Powerful stuff.
The company backs its AI, or “Automated Income Assistant,” with a 1,500-person call center to further engage leads.
The company co-founders told me they worked heavily on analyzing countless sales scripts to build an effective lexicon and leverage proven conversational tactics to nail down interested buyers and sellers.
Agent-users can launch dialing campaigns, build mailing lists and use HelloAlex as a general “manual” marketing platform, if so desired.
A few lead sources and customer relationship managers (CRMs) HelloAlex connects to include:
- Zillow
- Trulia
- realtor.com
- Homes.com
- Top Producer
- BoomTown
- Real Estate Webmasters
- FiveStreet
- Follow Up Boss
HelloAlex is not only for new leads — it works alongside your current database too. This makes it a suitable solution for agents looking to engage cold 2017 leads or buyers who closed a couple years ago.
What I see in HelloAlex is a way to nurture new leads and manage lead sources, not necessarily manage contacts. There’s a difference.
The volume of lead sources becoming available to agents is problematic. I envision 2018 agents needing more help with managing lead sources than managing relationships.
I consider HelloAlex a “pre-CRM” — a way to ensure your CRM ingests only leads with the highest probability of providing the utmost in financial nutrition.
HelloAlex is in beta, has a 1,500 person waiting list and will launch at Connect in New York this month.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
