Since July, Coldwell Banker Realty has given 15,000 agents access to Compass’ Home Platform. Kamini Lane, the brokerage brand’s president and CEO, says agent sentiment matters even more than adoption.
As Compass International Holdings rolls out its $2 billion agent platform across its sprawling brand portfolio, company-owned brokerages are getting first dibs, with franchise rollouts slated for next year.
Coldwell Banker Realty, one of Compass’ company-owned operations with roughly 52,000 agents, has spent the past two months running pilot markets, in-person “activation” sessions, and a coaching partnership with the Tom Ferry Organization to get agents onto the platform and keep them there.
Inman spoke with Kamini Lane, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Realty, about what the rollout has looked like so far, how the brand is protecting its 120-year-old identity inside a shared tech stack and why she’s betting agent sentiment — not adoption numbers — will be the real measure of success a year from now.
This article is the first of a series that will examine Compass International Holdings’ Home Platform tech rollout, speaking with the executives, real estate agents and industry insiders who have the most at stake.
Inman: Company-owned brokerages like Coldwell Banker are getting first access to the Home Platform, and it’ll roll out to the franchises next year. What has early access looked like for Coldwell Banker thus far?
Lane: We’ve rolled it out in phases. We started in July with our pilot markets — a hand-selected group of pilot agents, plus the entire Chicago market. We wanted a handpicked beta-testing group to give us deep feedback, and we also wanted to launch to an entire market to see how the platform performed across a breadth of agents.
That was our first phase. Then we started the general rollout in August, working toward rolling out to all Coldwell Banker Realty agents. Thus far, we’ve given over 15,000 agents access to the platform.
It’s been a really hands-on approach. Even before the pilot phase, we made sure all our leaders and staff felt fluent in the platform. Our first investment was in in-person training sessions we called “learning platform parties” to make sure leaders understood the value and the how-to.
Then we got our field marketing staff comfortable with it, and from there started activation sessions. Our field marketing team has done 1-on-1 in-person sessions, small-group in-person sessions and virtual sessions. We have had over 9,000 1-on-1 activation sessions so far, plus hundreds more small-group sessions. So it’s really been a team effort across all of Coldwell Banker Realty.
We’re investing at this level because we truly believe the home platform is transformative for our agents.
Do you have a specific timeline or goal for what the rollout looks like over the next year? What are the next steps, and what specific metrics are you targeting?
Our goal is to have every single Coldwell Banker Realty agent activated on the platform within the next several months. Right now we’re focused on the subset of agents we believe will benefit most — our most productive agents — so that’s the focus of our 1-on-1 sessions. But any agent can get access, and our ultimate goal is to onboard every agent in the network.
Editor’s note: Lane oversees Coldwell Banker Realty, the company-owned brokerage arm of the Coldwell Banker brand. Lane’s comments here pertain only to the company-owned side. Mary Lee Blaylock oversees the franchise/affiliate network. The franchise rollout hasn’t begun yet.
You said you really feel the platform is transformative. Why do you think that? What does it provide that makes it stand out?
I’ll go off on a slight tangent and circle back. I was at Inman Connect San Diego in July, and I said on stage that I don’t think in 18 months we’ll be talking about which brokerage has the best technology. It’ll be a conversation about adoption. Who can actually demonstrate the value of the technology and get agents running their business on it?
Kamini Lane | Credit: Coldwell Banker Realty
That’s where the Home Platform stands out — it’s completely integrated. We like to say the innovation is in the integration. It brings everything an agent needs to run their business and elevate the client experience into one place, and it’s incredibly intuitive.
The platform was built with $2 billion in investment focused entirely on what agents actually need — understanding the sophistication of a real estate professional’s business, and also understanding where agents have deeply ingrained habits we don’t think it’s our place to change.
A good example is search filters. Agents are used to entering listings into the MLS with certain filters, so we made sure that experience feels intuitive within the platform.
We have sophisticated tools like the AI system, which streamlines routine work and completes actions with prompting and approval. One of my favorites is Daily Task Reminders. I don’t wake up every morning knowing exactly what I should prioritize, and neither do most people. Real estate professionals are entrepreneurs, so they’re reliant on themselves to prioritize their day, which is a big ask. The Daily Task Reminders use AI to review an agent’s listings, CRM and every business data point, then recommend a prioritized list for the day.
Because of the platform’s sophistication, intuitiveness and full integration, agents who use it to grow their businesses and elevate the client experience will have a major advantage over agents who don’t engage.
Compass has said there’s no mandate to adopt the Home Platform, but what does that look like in practice? Is there still an expectation to adopt it?
We believe so deeply in the platform that we think it sells itself. There’s no expectation beyond the fact that our vision at Coldwell Banker Realty is to be the home for the best agents in the industry — agents who deliver unparalleled service and run sophisticated businesses. We think it’s natural that those agents will want to use the platform because its value is so clear.
That said, we’re also trying to make adoption easy and attractive. That’s why our field marketing staff and leaders are focused on activations and why we’ve invested thousands of hours in one-on-one activations.
For example, we’ve partnered with the Tom Ferry Organization — widely regarded as the best coaching organization in real estate — on a coaching program built around the platform. It includes in-person sessions followed by weekly virtual coaching, workshops and accountability groups, so agents can get deeply engaged with the hand-holding of a great coach.
So to answer your question: We feel the platform sells itself, combined with our approach to both activation and ongoing usage. We don’t feel we need any expectation beyond facilitating engagement with the platform.
With this rolling out across so many different brands and agents, and Coldwell Banker having its own distinct brand, how do you protect that identity when the underlying tech is shared across so many brokerages?
The platform itself is brand-agnostic, with its own logo and look and feel. But within the Home Platform, it’s branded for Coldwell Banker Realty. Marketing materials, email headers and anything client-facing that previously carried CBR branding still carry that branding within the Home Platform.
We’re in a unique position at Coldwell Banker. We have a 120-year-old brand, and its history and heritage are unlike anything else in the industry. We’re very passionate about celebrating that brand, and that doesn’t change within Compass International Holdings or within the Home Platform. We’re still proudly “bleeding blue” with everything client-facing.
What happens to client data that lives in the platform if an agent leaves the brokerage? Can they take it with them?
We have a data pledge that we’re proud of and vocal about. Real estate professionals’ data belongs to them, and they take it with them if they choose to leave Coldwell Banker Realty.
Our retention is at an all-time high, and we hope the combination of our service, brand and technology means very few agents want to leave — the data is bearing that out right now. But life happens, and if an agent does choose to move on, their data goes with them.
This is obviously a massive tech rollout. Compass has called it the largest tech deployment in real estate history. Does it feel that seismic inside Coldwell Banker, or does it feel more like a big upgrade from what you had before?
I think it does feel that massive, because the technology really is that great. I started at Compass back in 2018, joining in early 2019 when the platform was just being built. Some pieces were already phenomenal, but the dream at that point was a fully integrated, intuitive, sophisticated platform an agent could run their entire business on. Fast-forward seven years, and that’s real.
For me personally, it feels momentous to give my agents access to technology that was a personal dream and goal of mine back when I started at Compass. It feels like one of the biggest things we’ve ever tried to do. But the funny thing is, it doesn’t feel like we’re rolling a boulder uphill. Agents are so excited and receptive, and our leaders and staff are too, because it really is that good. So while it’s a huge endeavor, it’s equally exciting because it delivers.
A year from now, what would make you say the rollout was a big success for Coldwell Banker specifically? Is it mostly agent adoption?
I think it’s agent adoption and agent sentiment. If the majority of our agents are running their businesses on the Home Platform, and you could stop any CBR agent on the street and they’d say, “Yeah, I run my business on the Home Platform” — that, to me, would be success.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
