Matching can get really quite involved!
Over the years, we've added lots of very powerful features (mostly found in Match Processor) to cater for the many different ways that estate agents keep in touch with their applicants.
To simplify the whole process, though, we have a very straightforward and rapid way of getting a new or amended property to your applicants (Quick Match from a Property)Â and we have a clever way of reviewing details sent to applicants in their Welcome Email (Show Suitable Properties from an Applicant)
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Show Suitable Properties from an Applicant
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Property Presenter is a great new feature, released in Expert Agent Touch's September 2014 launch.
It has been built to fulfill several roles:Â
1. Provide a Touch Screen, Interactive property presentation for visiting applicants - helping to lure them back to your offices
2. Provide an easy way to send specific properties in response to an applicant enquiry without doing a full applicant registration (but still getting enough to disarm a fee dispute or appease a vendor demanding evidence of progress)
3. Provide an attractive screen saver / carousel for your unused PCs and office window screens.
Getting Started
You can get to Property Presenter in 3 ways:
1. From the Applicants section of the top menu
2. From an Applicant record's Tools Menu. Just Right-click or 2-finger-touch.
We'll assume (at least to start with) that you've accessed it from the Top Menu. You are processing a new enquiry. You hope to register the applicant.
The Property Selection Form is displayed as below:
If you'd accessed this from the applicant record, the applicant name and details would be pre-populated in the appropriate box, top left. In this case, we haven't got that far - we're just starting to process an enquiry that could lead to a registration.
Follow the steps below:
1. set up the required accommodation and prices using the price sliders and the popup menus that appear when you click type, style etc.
2. Your default locations are already ticked - click the locations section to expand a normal locations tree view and choose suitable areas.
3. The panel top right allows you to configure the way that Property Presenter displays properties.
4. The total number of suitable properties is displayed and updated dynamically - every time you change prices or accommodation.
We now need to consider the diifference between "Suitable" and "selected" properties.
Suitable Properties have been chosen by EA based on price, accommodation etc.
If you click on Suitable and Selected Properties (6), you'll see a pick list of properties with a checkbox next to them. If you tick any, they change from being just suitable to being selected. You can do this in the Visual Presenter stage later.
Selected Properties have been Selected by you (or you and the applicant together). Selected Properties can also include properties that weren't considered Suitable by EA. That's where step 5 comes in!
5. Find & Select Property allows you to put in an address, partial address, postcode etc and select a property. You would use this when you have an enquirer (notice the word enquire, not applicant) on the phone and you want to send a specific property.
Lock Selected Records (6) above, stops the Visual Presenter being able to tick and select properties.
So, in our example above, EA has found 4 suitable properties. To see them, we have 2 choices -
Non Visual
click the Suitable and Selected box (6) and see the properties in a list as below. Suitable ones are unticked, Selected ones are ticked. There's a check/uncheck all option. If your enquiry is a general one, you'd probably tick all of them. Any that are ticked change from being suitable to selected. If the enquiry is specifically for one or two properties, you'd leave the suitable properties unticked.
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If EA has missed a property or you just want to add a specific one to suit the enquiry, click into find & select a property (5) and input a partial address. If you click on the displayed property record, it is automatically selected
You will now have a list of Selected properties
When ready, move on to the Create Applicant section below to find out how to send the out.
Visual
Select either Show Suitable Properties to show the ones that EA has chosen or choose Show Selected Properties to show the ones you've chosen or added to the selection.
Either way, you get the Visual Presenter form shown below:
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 Visual Property Presenter is built for touch screens.
If you don't have a touch screen, click between a property's photos using the left and right buttons. The number of photos is shown on the left (3)
You then get further options on the left
When you've presented enough, click the X in the top right hand corner to close the Browser tab. You revert back to the Property Presenter Selection form where you came from.
At that form, press Create a New Applicant (9).
The form below is displayed:
The only compulsory fields are the name section (1) and the email and a phone number (2)
However, there's a postcode lookup if you want to do the job properly.
Finally, decide what you want to do with the selected properties. There's a tick box to merely create events. However, the example above highlights the more likely option - Create X Events and Email Now.
Click Save (4) when ready
The form below is displayed:
Change the subject (if you leave it blank it will be "Your Property Requirements") and change the text as required. You can change the default text in Configure. Unless you want to chase the Matches in Outstanding Matches, leave the mark Matches as Complete option ticked.
Click on Save.
The welcome email gets sent with a link to suitable properties as below:
Welcome Email
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Clicking through to Property List:
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Match reports can be created from the Outstanding Matches grids. The option is in the action menu, under 'Outputs':
There are two formats - a detailed report and a summary report. The detailed report is easier to use, as it gives you more information about your applicants and makes it clearer which properties each person needs to be sent.
To run a match report, simply click on 'Match Report' in the action menu and select the desired format:Â
Clicking on the save icon produces the report.
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There is an option in configuration that allows you to turn on match record locking for negotiators. What this would mean is that negotiators 'claim' match results as they are processing them - you no longer see applicant contact details from the match grid, to process a match result you must click into it -Â which automatically assigns it to your name and prevents colleagues from seeing the applicant's contact details. This is useful in offices where somebody runs a match and then multiple negotiators work on calling it out at the same time, as it ensures only one person can be working on each match result.
To turn on match record locking, a super user would need to enter a number of minutes a match record should be locked for in the Matching Defaults section of configuration. For example, entering 10 would mean that when a negotiator clicks on a match result it is locked for them for 10 minutes.
The way that you will know if a match record is locked or not is by clicking on it - if it is, then a message will appear telling you that the record is currently locked. If it isn't, then the record will open and be locked to you.
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This section covers some of the additional matching functions.
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