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New York-based brokerage Brown Harris Stevens (BHS) has launched a new in-house-built, internal digital hub for agents called BHSOne, the brokerage told Inman.
The platform, available to all BHS agents and staff, includes features like an agent design studio, a video library of educational content, a marketing center, a region-specific document library and more. The resource is the first of its kind to be available at the brokerage since its 2020 merger with Halstead, combining some of BHS’s existing agent tools with those of Halstead, and adding new tools as well.
Bess Freedman | Brown Harris Stevens
“With the launch of BHSOne, all of our Brown Harris Stevens agents will have an improved seamless experience no matter where they are located,” Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman said in a statement. “This enhanced platform will save our agents time, allow them to do more business, and focus on their client relationships which is the cornerstone of our industry.”
The platform is the brain child of the brokerage’s Chief Engineering and Technology Officer Vincent D’Agostino, Chief Information and Product Officer Chris Reyes and Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Leone, as well as the company’s marketing and web engineering teams.
“We’ve taken the best features from all [prior BHS and Halstead] platforms, consolidated into one and expanded upon it,” Reyes told Inman.
The one-stop-shop platform, which is available to agents and staff at no extra charge, allows agents to access all of the brokerage’s apps using a single log in.
Chris Reyes | Brown Harris Stevens
The DIY Agent Design Studio, which was built in partnership with marketing design firm Maxa Designs, allows agents to create their own products in the Canva-like app that fit within the BHS brand. Agents have over 400 templates to choose from to create things like show sheets, postcards, brochures, email newsletters, social graphics and more at the drop of a hat and on agents’ own schedule.
Agents who prefer to work directly with the firm’s marketing department can also do so within BHSOne’s Marketing Center, where agents can order and review marketing products and communicate with the BHS marketing team directly within the app.
The platform’s Document Library also allows agents to access region-specific documents necessary for completing a transaction, and will be searchable by region.
The Agent Design Studio | Credit: Brown Harris Stevens
Groups that agents can subscribe to within the platform facilitate conversations with agents and staff on a number of topics, from client needs or wants to market opportunities to vendor recommendations and more.
“What makes it good is they can subscribe or unsubscribe to whatever [group] list and participate in as many or as few topics as they want,” Reyes said.
Matthew Leone | Brown Harris Stevens
“There’s certain markets that we’re in right now where so much business is being done through off-market opportunities,” Leone added. The desire to easily communicate with other agents in the brokerage about what listings may be about to come to market “is very strong,” he noted, and the group chats are a great avenue to do just that.
The platform’s University is another component its creators are excited about. The searchable video library features both short- and long-form continuing education videos that will refresh regularly, and even feature members of the brokerage’s leadership team.
“The University provides a really fantastic place for us to showcase our veteran leadership and provide value from a brokerage standpoint to our agents,” Reyes told Inman.
On top of all those features, BHSOne also includes shortcuts so that agents can more quickly access their most frequently used apps and requests, and a Listing Spotter Tool, an area on the platform’s home screen that will regularly update with the brokerage’s newest listings, across all markets.
BHS plans to continue to update the platform, with a new Customer Relationship Management tool to be embedded into BHSOne in the coming weeks.
“This platform was absolutely a home run between marketing and tech,” Reyes told Inman. “Both of our teams have worked so hard on this product … A lot of industry knowledge went in there and it couldn’t have been done without that type of synergy. So often in this industry, you have white-labeled solutions … and to be able to build something from scratch, collaborate with the tech team, and to design it exactly how your agents want it based on internal feedback is something special.”
