Main user of the software will be a Real Estate sales agent (hereon THE AGENT). The Owner of the software is PAILLES INVESTMENTS a California Corporation in the United States of America (henceforth THE OWNER).
The purpose of this software and app. Is to facilitate the everyday activities of a sales professional, particularly the Real Estate sales professional.
The idea is that no information will have to be captured or input more than once, one person inputs anything ONCE, and everybody involved in the system will be spared from duplicating the effort, potentially saving tens or hundreds of labor involved in a transaction, saving money and streamlining the process to dramatically reduce the time that is currently required to complete this process.
Developer will be provided with a preliminary Access 2000 file containing some tables, queries, & reports, as well as wireframe mock ups (for desktop and mobile versions) intended to clarify the owner's intent.
This software will be divided into different stages of development, this document appertains to the first phase or stage only.
The main use, in the first stage will be to satisfy all Database management functions required by a Real Estate sales person, like but not limited to the following:
1. Add, delete and edit contacts
a. Add, delete or edit extended contact information (family members, personality, dates, passwords, etc…)
i. Print, reports, directories, email, text, call contacts,
ii. create calling, mailing, texting, etc… lists.
iii. Print, email personalized presentations:
1. iv. Group contacts by
1. Buyers or
2. Sellers
a. Spanish
b. English
i. Hot
ii. Medium
iii. Cold
iv. Delete
b. Add contacts property information (Address, own or rent)
i. Add, delete or edit contact’s property extended information (bedrooms, bathrooms, sqft,year built, etc…)
c. Import contacts from other databases (csv, outlook, facebook, topproducer, etc…) (mapping of fields, save mapping templates for future use)
2. Contact activity, notes and communication log
3. Calendar and scheduling (Scheduling of callbacks, prioritize, overlapping appointment prevention, repeating activities, scheduling of pre-established sets of activities, color code based on priority (must call back=red; pending = green; done= regular or done).
a. Allow user to establish contact with individuals and log results (as in following item 4)
4. Prospecting lists: User will be able to create and use saved lists as calling, text or email lists and be able to interrupt the “contacting” effort , advance to the next name in line in a one by one basis, the system should always save the last record contacted and allow user to continue where left of, whenever the user decides to continue. Also allow user to easily log result of contact made and required follow up activity:
a. Result of contact made:
i. Successful or failed
ii. Status: HOT, Cold,
iii. Follow up:
1. Follow up call
2. Follow up visit
3. Set appointment
4. Appointment
5. Email
6. Delete
a. User will also have the ability to set the priority level for the follow up action.
5. Team members, the user can input his team members, information only needs to be captured once, but can be edited in the future:
a. Broker
b. Coach
c. Team leader
d. Assistant
e. Transaction coordinator
f. Listing manager
g. Buyer agent
h. Client
i. Escrow
i. Escrow officer
j. Title
i. Title Rep.
k. Home Warranty
i. Home Warranty Rep.
l. Termite
i. Termite Rep.
m. Home Inspector
n. Contractor
o. Lender
p. Appraiser
q. Home Insurance
6. Each team member will have different levels of access and capabilities that will be pre-defined.
a. For example, The assistant will probably have access to every process and information except deleting records, exporting or copying the database or part of it.
b. The Lender might have access to specific files appertaining the customer who is in the transaction where the lender is selected, and in regards to those files, lender will probably have the ability to upload certain pre-determined files (appraisals, copy of applications, loan condition reports), download or share other customer files like (all extended information about the house, contact information for escrow, title, termite reports, buyer’s contact information, etc…)
7. Presentation and personalized mails, emails or text. The user will have that ability to use “system-provided” documents or save “Word-like” document with mail-merge fields corresponding to fields in the database. Then with very few clicks, user will have the ability to create personalized presentations or documents with almost no time involved in the process, the documents created will then be easily emailed, printed, texted, exported to PowerPoint or other widely used platform. Created documents will be saved in the customer’s folders. (the system will create a structured set of folders upon detecting that agent has initiated a transaction with the customer, that folder structure will be accurately defined by Manager, but will look like the following: (each line is a folder or subfolder)
a. SELLERS
i. John Doe- 123 easy street (main folder for client)
1. CONTRACTS AND LEGAL
2. TRANSACTION DOCUMENTS
a. DISCLOSURES
b. TC CHECKLIST
c. AGENT’S VISUAL
d. CLUE REPORT
e. CONTINGENCY REMOVAL
f. TC
g. COMMUNICATION LOG
h. LIST OF DOCUMENTS
3. INSPECTIONS AND REPORTS
4. TITLE INSURANCE
5. ESCROW
a. Form [login to view URL]
b. Form [login to view URL]
6. HOA
7. PHOTOS
8. OFFERS PRESENTED
9. OTHER
10. SHOWING INSTRUCTIONS
11. TENANT OCCUPIED PROPERTY
12. TRANSACTION LOGS
8. When a transaction is initiated, a TRANSACTION “ROAD MAP” will be created, the default or Agent’s selected team members will be assigned and linked to such transaction. Communication will be possible from within the system, between the agent and the team members, between team members (with restrictions to be determined), between customer and agent, between customer and team members (with restrictions to be determined. The type of communication the system will allow with a click of a button will be TEXT, PHONE CALL & EMAIL.
a. The transaction roadmap will follow a default timeline (predetermined but allowing modification or alteration by agent), setting a calendar for all the different steps of the transaction (some activities will trigger partial or total calendarization, for example: Upon signing a contract, sign needs to be ordered, photos need to be ordered, property information needs to be uploaded to MLS. But property information depends of photos having been taken and delivered in order to upload it to the MLS. And so forth.
9. The different roads within the road map will change color to indicate:
a. CLEAR – Item is not yet started and not yet required to begin.
b. GREEN- Activity has been completed
c. YELLOW- Activity is in progress in a timely basis
d. RED- Activity is behind on schedule, requires immediate attention.
10. All the users linked to the transaction (agent, user and team members) will see the ROADMAP containing the same color scheme reflecting the current status of the activities, this way the party who is responsible for any delay is immediately put in evidence, increasing the need for accountability of the partners and a more efficient and timely process, which is more likely to finish successfully and with higher customer satisfaction. It will also allow more control of the same transaction by the agent, not allowing things to fall between the cracks or be forgotten, and more sense of control for the customer, who will feel he is being kept constantly informed and will more likely praise the communication skills of his agent and will be more prone to recommending him/her to a center of influence.
11. There will be a “SMILEY” button on most of the pages of the CUSTOMER’S interface, which will allow customer to easily recommend his agent or the professional shown in the page where the SMILEY appears, to be recommended to any person, simply inputing the person’s name and email or phone and pressing SEND. This will notify via text and email to both parties of the recommendation.
Revenue:
The agent will be required to register and pay a subscription fee, upon completing registration the agent will not have to fill in any of the fields that he input. He will be able to edit those fields if needed.
The system will connect agent to a PAY ONLINE service to pay for registration
Other professionals who will be required to register are most of the team members. The fee structure might change for each professional, as well as different pay schedules based on monthly, quarterly, annual payments, etc…
The Owner might override cost, payments at will for promotional purposes.
The idea is that the agent will initially will be the main receiver of the benefits of this app.
The main value that is being created for the agent consists on how much control and up to date information will be available to his client, this will in turn will generate more referrals by increasing customer satisfaction.
Other tremendous value to the agent is the added control of the transaction timeline and the activities of the different professionals involved in it, beginning with the agent’s activities and following with (not limited to:
a. Assistant
b. Photographer
c. Sign company
d. Title Company
e. Escrow Company
f. Financing companies
g. Physical Inspector
h. Contractor
i. Insurance Company
j. Other agents
These other professionals who form an important part of the Agent’s TEAM in each transaction will also be a source of revenue.
They will be capable of receiving the communications from the Agent, they will see the ROAD MAP of the transaction, and they will see who the different members of the team are. But in order to have direct access to all the documents, reports and the information that is in the system, appertaining the transaction, they will be required to pay, either a small fee per transaction or a monthly or annual subscription. The users that don’t pay the fee will simply have to input information again and will not have the automated capabilities for communication, access to the transaction folders, contact information of the team members.
The example mockups provided do not intend to substitute creative webpage design, on the contrary, Owner expects the developing contractor to provide a modern, efficient and practical User interface. The Owner simply wants to convey as much as possible, the idea of what information the users should see, the expectation of uniformity of the location of buttons throughout the pages, the use of colorful icons that appear as direct result of the page being accessed and the pages that are most likely linked to the same, or that user will want to access.
Some pages simply indicate when popups should appear on top of the pages that call for them, looking more vivid than the rest of the screen.
Just as buttons that are not to be used on a screen will either disappear or will appear fogged or grayed out, allowing user to press them but diminishing their visual impact due to the unlikely hood to be used on the particular screen.