Inman

New app sends a text message whenever a lead comes in

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Real estate website provider WebsiteBox has launched a new app that alerts agents via text message as soon as a new lead comes in from their site.

As it is not a native mobile app, the application, which goes for a one-time fee of $99, works for all cellphone types.

A quick response is one of the critical components in turning Internet leads into clients, and a growing number of tech platforms are introducing instant-notification features.

The big portals Zillow, Trulia and Move Inc. recently unveiled updates to their platforms that help agents respond more quickly to leads they get from them.

And in November one of the largest brokerages in the U.S., Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, purchased a customer relationship management platform, in part, to shorten its response time to online leads.

In addition to the lead-response app, WebsiteBox has also introduced a QR code app that helps agents track where their leads come from. Agents can use the app, which also goes for $99, to create QR codes and place them on print marketing materials. When consumers scan the codes with a smartphone, they are taken to a website the agent linked to the code.

WebsiteBox provides IDX websites to brokers and agents for a flat fee of $99 with feeds from at least 240 multiple listing services in the U.S. and Canada. Real estate pros can add additional “apps” onto the website, like the two above for $99 each.

By tapping into MLSs, the IDX websites enable real estate pros to display virtually all of for-sale home listings in their given markets, providing a useful service to prospective homebuyers.