Smartly packaged from an assemblage of established technologies, Elm Street Technology’s Elevate is business productivity software for mid-size brokerages to manage leads, clients and agent performance. But it’s among tough competition.
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Elevate is real estate business productivity software for agents, teams and brokers.
Platforms: Browser-app; mobile-responsive
Ideal for: Mid-size independents and franchises
Top selling points
- Seamless MLS property and agent data feed
- Agent’s sphere protected from broker
- User interface design
- Broker oversight
- Lead and contact management features
Top concerns
Much of Elevate’s solution has roots in previous companies’ efforts. When authentic change is needed, will it be able to innovate fast enough to compete with those firms who have built their own? Probably. But it might be keeping them up at night.
What you should know
Elevate, like its many competitors, has broadened its capabilities on the winds of acquisition, zeroing-in on sharp and finalized products to enter technological airspaces such as marketing automation (eMerge), MLS integration (ListingBook) and lead generation (AgentJet).
The final product is without doubt ready for takeoff, but a broker’s decision to partner with Elevate has to come down to its highlights because like Chime, TopProducer, Brivity and others, it can confidently support most of your real estate business by managing website content, providing blog content, creating complex lead-routing structures, and offering financial outlooks per office, agent and team. All the fundamentals are there.
Elevate’s internal MLS feed is a good place to start.
The less time a user has to spend squinting into the user interface (UI) of a multiple listing service’s ’80s-era property information screens, the better.
Elevate absorbs that experience and scrubs it clean, allowing agents to create and save buyer searches and comb comps for listing clients.
It also gives brokers the power to search and recruit other agents based on their performance in a particular ZIP code or with specific property types. Targeted agents can then be dropped into a recruiting-specific marketing campaign that tailors content around the benefits of switching brokerages.
The prevailing card-based content delivery gives users a quick-click experience into what matters, and for brokers, that will likely be the “Roster Card.”
This feature breaks down each agent’s performance, ranging from their lead response time to how many of their listings have expired. Its data-granularity is impressive, and it can be applied to agents and teams across all offices.
The “Attention” card is a nice touch, too. What better way to alert someone to what needs to be done than the word “Attention”? Yes, the best software is the most simple.
Another standout feature is Elevate’s auto-populated task list behind the “Lead Contact” card.
The overall concept of dynamic tasks list isn’t new (I reviewed Nekst in 2015), but Elevate’s delivery of it is based on coaching as opposed to task assignment.
Each time a contact’s status in the system changes based on progress in the relationship, the activity suggestions adjust accordingly. I envision this being a superb benefit for new agents, but also a good check-in for experienced agents.
I’m mixed on Elevate’s web content management system.
Content is created and adjusted within the admin panels of the system, not from an actual website backend. Although efficient, it makes for an odd workflow, partially disconnecting the user from the results.
But there are some sharp touches on the marketing front.
Social media-addled agents will appreciate Elevate’s ability to automatically transform any MLS status change into a social media post. Any price adjustment or open house gets pumped directly to your blog, Facebook or Twitter feed with data, dates and details.
What’s most important here isn’t the hands-off component, it’s the consistency of information among publishing channels, which helps agents ensure they include the proper landing page, price, square footage, etc.
It can even pump out YouTube slideshow videos of listings. Although creatively null, they’re great for anxious buyers, and sellers love seeing their home on the internet’s second largest search engine.
Buyers and sellers can be setup to receive a “Morning Report” of all market activity specific to their search or listing, and brokers get one as well, as it pertains to their offices’ comings and goings.
Elevate provides a “white glove” onboarding experience, helping customers with everything from building their lead routing rules to advising on social media content.
The latter wisdom comes from Elm Street Technology’s (Elevate’s parent) creative firm, 3SixtyFive.
(For the record: I don’t agree that agents shouldn’t be hands-on with their web or blog content. But in lieu of doing nothing, automate.)
Elevate made a good choice about its target market, as smaller regional brokerages need to invest in this type of solution to attract and retain top producers.
It also helps create them.
End-to-end solutions such as this have grown in accessibility to smaller non-franchise-backed teams and offices. As the technology costs less to develop, it’s cheaper to acquire, connect and repackage, a trend that has become incredibly beneficial to the industry.
And to the users of Elm Street Technologies’ Elevate.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
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