Can you spot any of the following symptoms in your agent community?
- Resistance to tech change
- Declining adoption of tech offerings
- Complaints of tech complexity
- Complete rejection of brokerage technology policy (rogue agents)
If so, you’re likely dealing with an epidemic of “tech tool fatigue syndrome”or simply “tool fatigue.” Caused by the big push for digital transformation, tool fatigue is a debilitating plague that’s spreading across the country, costing brokerages money, productivity, and agents.
Digital transformation of the brokerage agent experience is a must today. But often that transformation becomes a focus on adding the hottest, new technology for the pure sake of innovation instead of using innovation to solve key business problems, such as retaining agents with a streamlined marketing experience. Agents are left with too many tech options and not enough guidance.
As you consider the role of technology in your brokerage, here are five ways to cure or prevent tool fatigue within your agent community:
- Build a cohesive agent tech strategy
Before investing in any technology, take a step back to determine the overall problems you’re trying to solve. Is technology the only answer to your business problems? Or are additional process changes needed to make technology a successful solution? Make sure the whole leadership team is in agreement on the strategy and proactively communicates it to the rest of the staff and agents. - Listen to your agent community
When designing your tech strategy, don’t just view the problems from the brokerage side. Take time to talk to your agents and understand the specific challenges that they face. You can learn a great deal from outside sources and articles, but technology is never a one-size-fits-all approach. The pain that your agents experience will give you valuable insight into developing a customized strategy. - Leverage automation
Wherever possible, find ways to take the manual work out of daily life. Real estate will always be a business built on relationships and empathy, which takes time and laser-sharp focus. Empower your agents to focus on fulfilling the brand promise to clients by spending less time on repetitive tasks. - Limit tech options
Hopefully, by taking time to build a cohesive tech strategy, you realize that less is more when it comes to tech options. Providing 50 solutions doesn’t necessarily create 50x more value for agents; in fact, too many options can overwhelm agents and cut into productivity. - Focus on the “why,” not “what”
When you choose your technology solutions, introduce them to agents carefully. Focus on how the tech solves the problems that they shared with you and how it easily fits into their current workflows. Ideally, the tech will cause minimal disruption, but it’s always possible that you’ve determined an entire process needs to be disrupted. Try not to oversell with “newest” or “ahead-of-the-trends” verbiage. Instead, sell the value.Remember, while features are awesome, focusing on the “what” can scare some agents. If you have a tech-savvy group within your agent community, give them a place where they can go on their own to research the “what” of the solution.
All this being said, don’t give up on digital transformation! By following the key points above, you can transform the way your brokerage embraces technology and solve key business problems without alienating your agent community.