Relocator
Moving & Relocation
Inman Rating

Moving hub Relocator's intentions are good, but the competition's are better: Tech Review

Yes, discounts are good, but that doesn't do anything in terms of making Relocator a better alternative for agents to offer moving services
Relocator
Stay organized

Relocator is a moving concierge service that helps agents help their clients get settled in their new place. It helps them track their pending move date, find vendor discounts, storage facilities and everything else one needs to make a house a home.

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Relocator is a moving assistance solution for agents and clients.

Platforms: Browser, mobile responsive
Ideal for: All agents, teams, homebuyers and sellers

Top selling points:

  • Easy client onboarding
  • Activity/performance tracking
  • Email invite and onboarding
  • Local vendor discounts

Top concern:

There’s a lot of competition in this space, and Relocator’s ability to adapt from its long-time mortgage focus will determine how well it keeps up with the likes of MoveEasy and MooveGuru.

What you should know

Relocator is a moving concierge service that helps agents help their clients get settled in their new place. It helps them track their pending move date, find vendor discounts, storage facilities and everything else one needs to make a house a home, so to speak. It provides agents with marketing collateral and branding onboarding emails and partners with a national broker Unpakt to find users the best moving company.

Relocator has been in business for five years but only recently entered the real estate space. It primarily worked alongside mortgage companies as its lead source.

As is the case with all players in this field, the agent resells Relocator as a value-added service, but for very little cost. In fact, Relocator doesn’t cost anything for the agent to refer or the client to use.

The company provides marketing print and email collateral to help them advertise. There’s nothing unique here, as they’re common PDFs highlighting features and inviting users to create an account.

The onboarding process is the standout here, as it uses a daily countdown and a checklist in pie-graph form tracking what needs to be done and what has been done.

It’s a nice, visual way to communicate what is normally an overwhelming, often emotional fair for most people. The onboarding chart nicely lays out the time frame and each service to be called, connected or hooked up, letting users clearly see how many days out they are from the big day.

And, if they need help, each client has a designated staff concierge to assist them in the software or in any hook-up questions they may have as they approach move day.

The Explore Your Community module offers users a comprehensive look at what life might be like in your client’s new city. This is information largely available from a multitude of third-party providers, but it’s nice to see it presented in the context of the moving workflow.

Users can gather information on area schools, hospitals, nearby parks and other essential community amenities as they arrange for daycare or carpet installers.

There’s a clear, scrollable list of vendors according to location, each providing details on levels of service and costs. It ranges greatly, from home media setup services to who handles recycling.

Like its competitors, Relocator is provided discounts to offer its users. And here’s where I start to become less enthused about what I saw, as it created a contrast with what its industry colleagues offer.

Yes, discounts are good, but that doesn’t do anything in terms of making Relocator a better alternative for agents to offer moving services. I’ve met with all of them, and they all say, “No one offers the discounts we do.”

Yes, they do.

Like any good or service, there has to be a clear value proposition, and I’m just not seeing it here. Relocator is fine, its user experience is competent, and it does what it promises. The onboarding process gives me confidence, as does the breadth of its vendor lists.

And that’s kind of it.

Even the most engaging component, a feature called Visign that lets users envision rooms in their home in a variety of paint schemes, is merely a Benjamin Moore plugin.

The issue, ultimately, lies in the software not understanding just how technically competent the modern real estate agent has become and how vertically integrated its competitors have made their software.

Others in this space offer direct API connections to the home service vendors’ account software, meaning there are no websites to visit or numbers to dial to have your power turned on. They engage the client through transaction management linkages, ensuring that even before closing, a person is thinking about moving.

They have dynamic mortgage rate trackers and HELOC incentive calls-to-action, energy usage graphs and regional environmental data, among a number of other advanced digital pathways to almost totally flatten the moving process, not to mention, much stronger client marketing engagement for its agent and brokerage partners.

Reelocator is more of an online clearinghouse, a place for buyers and sellers to find vendors, save some bucks and organize what comes next in their home purchase journey. In terms of an agent-focused marketing additive, there’s work to be done.

But, given its short tenure in the real estate space, there’s more than enough room for it to, well, move.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.

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