Real Estate Contact Management- What Agents Don't want to Hear from Tech Support

Over the years I've tought real estate agents how to utilize technology to their advantage as far back as when DOS was around. Seriously, this was the time when mobile phones were called "car phones." Probably one of my most memorable achievements was working for the company that introduced laptops to the world of real estate. In the good old days they were heavier and weighed about 10lbs. Heck the hard drive was even smaller than what an iPod Nano uses today. My point is; many things have changed over the years and real estate contact management is one of them.

One thing that hasn't changed in all these years is the pain and hassle of calling for technical support when your little do-dad won't turn on or freezes like a deer in headlights. I have two PowerPoint slides I still use today in seminars that list the answers to this article's title. Two of my favorites are: "Do you have a brick or a sledgehammer handy?" and "Please hold for Mr. Gate's attorney." I'll hang on to the rest in case I'm ever in town for a live seminar ;).

The problem with tech support when dealing with Real Estate CRM is that most of the people there don't even use the software. They are almost like a smoke screen instead of any concrete help. My guess is none of them as ever sold real estate either. So basically if you have a question about Real Estate Contact Management software, the help you retain from the conversation is going to be minimal. Their main goal is to help you with those "error" messages. It's just one of the many issues that consumers complain about regarding technical support for programs like Top Producer and AgentOffice. Can you imagine trying to do a mail merge in your word processoor for your contacts and everytime you click the print button one letter pops up and the printer stops? Once you are irritated beyond belief you finally call tech support for the answer. The only problem is you have to hold for long periods of time (which has steam coming out your ears) and when you finally talk with you they have a series of questions. Unfortunately they only make matters worse by asking if other programs similar to the one you have find issues as well. Uh, hello? Why would we have more than one? Probably the funniest part is going through all the same stuff you tried already and wasting another hour to 2 hours time. So what is their final answer; "Well, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with your software." Thank freaking goodness, now can you fix the bleeping problem already! One time I had a person tell me technical support said; "Maybe you shouldn't try to use it to do mail merges." Really?

The main problem all along is that there was an "educational" issue instead of a "technical" one. When you were printing out your Real Estate Contact Management list you tried preparing a form letter from a different part of the program. Then again it might have been one minuscule step that didn't take place. You know, like telling the software to print "to the contact" not "to the group." The worst part is most of the tech support on staff has no idea this is an issue when preparing a mail merge. However, they are well versed to make you feel like an idiot when using your Real Estate CRM software.

The real crime here is the cost of this kind of inferior technical support. Top Producer claims their technical support is FREE when in reality you have to pay $39/mo. for the program. AgentOffice gives you 30 days of technical support when you purchase their software, but after thirty days the cost of a single incident is $295 for a yearlong support contract (that's the same price as purchasing the program!)

My point here is, if you just take the time to get trained on the program you purchase, life with Agent Office Support will be much easier. Just think of it as a good health strategy. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you take this route you won't have a tech support person say; "We can fix this, but you're going to need a knife, a roll of duct tape and a car battery."

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