Real Estate Call Capture and Lead Generation - Real Estate Call Capture Questions and Answers

What is HouseCalls Audio Tour service?
How does the HouseCalls Audio Tour Service differ from so-called "Real Estate Call Capture Systems"?
How can I use the HouseCalls Audio Tour service to gain listings for homes that are "For Sale By Owner"?
How can HouseCalls help me "build my personal brand" as a foundation of my ongoing business success?
Why should I use HouseCalls Audio Tours?
Why should I use HouseCalls numbers on printed ads, and all other advertising too?
Why would a potential buyer want to call an Audio Tour?
Exactly HOW do I get my leads?
Can callers talk to me after they listen to an Audio Tour?
Why is HouseCalls better than that program that uses radio transmitters?
How do I get the toll-free number and unique HouseCalls ID code?
Can I reuse my HouseCalls ID code after the listing sells?
Who records the HouseCalls Audio Tours?
How long are the Audio Tour recordings?
Do I need to buy any special equipment to use HouseCalls?
Do I have to get another phone line to use HouseCalls?
Why does HouseCalls not offer a database feature to lookup the Name and Address corresponding to the phone number captured for each caller?
My house is already listed for sale. Why should I talk to my agent about adding HouseCalls to the selling effort?
When does the subscription begin?
How much is the set up fee?
Are there really no per minute charges with HouseCalls?

What is HouseCalls Audio Tour service?
HouseCalls is a marketing and sales productivity tool, used effectively by Realtors and agents, first to increase, and then to handle, incoming responses to their home sign riders, advertisements, direct mail, and flyers - by offering a convenient self-service audio tour of "that house", over the phone. More incoming responses, well handled, will develop into more leads, help to gain more new listings, and result in more/faster home sales. Each caller is also offered his or her choice of transferring the call to an agent, or just hanging up the phone. And, HouseCalls automatically captures every caller's phone number - even if the number is unlisted (sending you an immediate "Alert" via text message and/or by e-mail).
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How does the HouseCalls Audio Tour Service differ from so-called "Real Estate Call Capture Systems"?
Real Estate Call Capture Systems generally have been implemented based on platforms that were originally designed years ago to serve as voicemail systems, and as a result, they offer too many unimportant features - making them burdensome to utilize, and they are also unnecessarily expensive. This view is based in large part on our recent search on Google for "Real Estate Call Capture Systems" which yields items such as: "The dirty little secret about call capture...it probably won't work for you" and "The second-rate performance of your call capture system is probably costing you two to three transactions per month". In contrast, the HouseCalls Audio Tour Service has been implemented using up-to-date, proven technology (from Invores Systems, Inc.) as the platform for our "specifically-purpose-made software", thus including only the most useful features that provide the most important benefits. Because of this, HouseCalls has been shown to be an effective sales productivity tool for Realtors and agents, that we believe is simpler to setup and easier to use than traditional call capture systems. And best of all, HouseCalls is much less expensive than Real Estate Call Capture Systems - based on our Google search of their published monthly rates plus their per minute usage fees, and their initial setup charges too.
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How can I use the HouseCalls Audio Tour service to gain listings for homes that are "For Sale By Owner"?
When you come across a "FSBO" listing, offer to rent them limited use of your subscription to HouseCalls Audio Tour. We suggest you offer to rent to the FSBO for $20 per month, including one of your sign rider's with the toll free 800 number and one of your unique ID numbers. You should also offer to spend a few minutes to write the message script with them, and personally record it for them. This will open the door for you, help you gain credibility in their eyes, and provide more opportunity to talk about the other benefits of having you as their listing agent. Also, tell them that you'd like to have an opportunity to follow up with those callers who turned out not to have an interest in their property. Doing all this, gives you an excellent opportunity to show your value, to build a relationship -- and most important, possibly gain a listing.
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How can HouseCalls help me "build my personal brand" as a foundation of my ongoing business success?
By personally making your own recordings, your voice can convey to house sellers, buyers, and shoppers, a strong positive image of your helpfulness, your professionalism, and your skill at utilizing up-to-date sales techniques effectively.
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Why should I use HouseCalls Audio Tours?
HouseCalls Audio Tours are a great listing tool, sellers always appreciate extra effort. And when you use HouseCalls Audio Tours more leads are generated than traditional advertising alone, because people like "self-service" when it comes to getting information. Using HouseCalls gives you an edge over the competition (get more listings), and an easy way to generate more leads equals more sales.
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Why should I use HouseCalls numbers on printed ads, and all other advertising too?
Our subscribers tell us that using HouseCalls numbers on printed ads (typically in books such as The Real Estate Book, or Harmon Homes) results in this "made for each other" media-combination usually becoming their largest source of new leads - via incoming phone calls. To achieve this happy result, first, the size of the photo of the house is increased - offset by deletion of some printed text (to keep the number of listings printed on each page unchanged). And, second, by choosing text to delete - that is more effectively conveyed by HouseCalls - to be recorded with the personal touch of a skilled local Realtor®. A three-Realtor team received about 960 leads over 12 months, typically with about 12 or 15 listings in The Real Estate Book using HouseCalls numbers. This corresponds to about 80 leads/month, or about 20 leads/week. About 60% = 12 leads/week, were after normal business hours. Therefore, in 3:1 proportion, a single Realtor - with typically about 4 or 5 listings in The Real Estate Book (using HouseCalls numbers on all types of advertising) - could expect a total of about 7 leads/week, with about 4 leads/week received after normal business hours. However, not all these leads will be new - some of the best leads will be repeat callers. Our subscribers also tell us that it is important for them to diversify their advertising among multiple media/methods including: printed ads, yard signs, flyers, direct mail, and websites. And, combining each of these various methods with HouseCalls, first, yields more leads, and second, helps them measure and compare cost/benefit ratios to reallocate their advertising budget among the methods. To us, a combination of advertising methods (with spending allocated based on actual results) seems to be a winning strategy all around.
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Why would a potential buyer want to call an Audio Tour?
Consumers today prefer self service. Most people today prefer to do their initial information gathering on their own instead of talking to a salesperson. HouseCalls helps you weed out the "shoppers" from the "buyers" and brings you more leads to follow up on.
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Exactly HOW do I get my leads?
When you enter our secure customer area you have your own private "cockpit" where you can manage your audio tours. Our "Alert" page is where you can set up how you want to be alerted with your leads. You can sign up to receive emails to your computer, text messages to your cell phone or both.
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Can callers talk to me after they listen to an Audio Tour?
Yes! From the Audio Tour Management Center, you create Alert notifications that tell our system how you want your Audio Tour calls handled. You will enter your email address(es) and the phone number you want callers transferred to. Our new optional feature lets you enter transfer telephone numbers for a real estate agent and/or a mortgage specialist, which is perfect for teaming with colleagues. If you are an agent, and only want your calls coming to you, just enter your own phone number and the system will never even offer an alternate transfer. You can test drive examples of how this work on our Demos page.
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Why is HouseCalls better than that program that uses radio transmitters?
We often hear from agents who are considering trying something different, and who want to know how HouseCalls compares to Talking House. The easiest way to do that is to start with a basic understanding of what we believe is the most obvious comparison to make; the only way to get a lead call if you're using Talking House or any other radio transmitter lead system is for the potential buyer to make a phone call to the agent. If making a phone call is the path to a lead, why not use a program that combines an audio tour with a built-in ability to transfer the potentially interested buyer then and there? And, since HouseCalls captures the caller's phone number, and emails it to you automatically you can always follow up. It's tempting to think that it doesn't matter if you have a phone number to follow up with because if they were interested in something they heard on Talking House, they would have called you. But thinking that way will cause you to miss out on potential buyer clients. With HouseCalls you not only have a service that helps you promote your listings, you have a service that helps you uncover potential buyer clients. With Talking House you never know who is listening to your radio tour - that potential buyer client might as well not even exist - unless they pick up the phone and call. (There's that important phone piece of this puzzle again.) Try one of our free demos to see how sensible the HouseCalls approach is - you can even request a sample copy of our Alert Email from our Demos page.
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How do I get the toll-free number and unique HouseCalls ID code?
After you complete your order, we'll email you a link to a password protected site where you will be assigned your HouseCalls ID codes and also get the toll-free number.
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Can I reuse my HouseCalls ID code after the listing sells?
Yes! As long as you maintain a paid subscription to our service you get to keep your HouseCalls code numbers, so you can reuse them again and again when your listings sell. This makes it especially economical to purchase sign riders that can also be reused.
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Who records the HouseCalls Audio Tours?
You do! Audio Tours are simple and easy to record using our special toll-free over-the-phone recording service. You'll find tips and sample recording scripts to help you get started in our Customer Area.
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How long are the Audio Tour recordings?
Your Audio Tour recordings can be up to one minute long. We set this limit because as experts in delivering consumer information over the telephone we know that a minute is about as long as the average person wants to listen to information over the phone AND we know that recordings longer than one minute cause a caller to rapidly lose interest in what they are listening to.
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Do I need to buy any special equipment to use HouseCalls?
No! HouseCalls is an over the telephone service, with absolutely no special equipment needed and it works from any telephone.
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Do I have to get another phone line to use HouseCalls?
No! Our system handles all the incoming phone calls, and then if a caller wants to talk our system transfers them to your existing phone number (can be a cell phone number).
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Why does HouseCalls not offer a database feature to lookup the Name and Address corresponding to the phone number captured for each caller?
An increasing majority of the incoming phone calls to HouseCalls originate from cellular phones, and there is not yet available an official (or an effective unofficial) directory database listing Names and Addresses for cellular phones. We believe that the current 30% to 40% success rate of "database lookup of Name and Address for captured phone numbers" is not acceptable, and actually counterproductive by distracting focus away from timely follow-up of incoming calls. These comments are based on our experience, and on the following statistics from the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. More than 150,000,000 wireline telephone number listings are available in the U.S. and Canada official directory database. Not included are the roughly 100,000,000 wireline telephone numbers which are unlisted by consumer choice, nor the listings for the more than 200,000,000 plus cellular telephone numbers. This is by FCC mandate. In other words, of the 450,000,000 total phone numbers only about 150,000,000 - 33% - are listed in the official directory database. Although a few unofficial cellular phone-listing directories do exist (based on voluntary "opt-in" listing), they offer little or no evidence to demonstrate comprehensive content, or timely, accurate updates as the directory data constantly changes.
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My house is already listed for sale. Why should I talk to my agent about adding HouseCalls to the selling effort?
Well, because it works. We've become a nation of self-service buyers who want info about buying and selling homes around the clock, and at our fingertips. It's one of the reasons that websites like Zillow.com, TheRealEstateBook.com, and Realtor.com have had such a huge impact on the real estate industry. HouseCalls gives potential buyers self-service information 24 hours a day, from any telephone. Think about it; if your agent puts a flyer box on your front lawn and people come and take the flyers, and never call - your agent has no one to follow up with, and never knows of their interest. With HouseCalls, your agent gets a chance to follow up with every person who was interested enough in your house to make a phone call for more information. More interested prospects should translate to a quicker sale.
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When does the subscription begin?
HouseCalls subscriptions begin when you place your credit card order on our website. Within 15 minutes you are sent a link to create your password and access your new Audio Tour Management Center. As soon as you configure your Alerts and record your Audio Tours, you're working. Audio Tour ID numbers can be used immediately in brochures, on Just Listed cards, on internet ads, and print advertising.
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How much is the set up fee?
HouseCalls does not charge a set up fee.
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Are there really no per minute charges with HouseCalls?
There really are NO per minute charges with HouseCalls.
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