Key Highlight: Communications Savings for the Entire Staff

Proximiti provides services to companies in the real estate industry ranging from realtors to mortgage brokers to property management companies. Real estate professionals cater to demanding clients and spend considerable time outside office environments, working at client locations, and also from home for evening calls and other appointments. It’s not unusual for real estate professionals to have sky high wireless bills and manage multiple messaging systems. The Proximiti solution can be deployed at an employee or office or company level and deliver exceptional benefits in communications management while also substantially reducing costs.

This case study reviews a real estate agency that specializes in residential and commercial properties that has a combination of full time and part time professionals, many that work out of their homes or cars for most of their work days. By implementing the Proximiti solution, realtor productivity improved substantially, the system addressed needs of on the road, home based, and office based staff and telecommunications costs were reduced by 30% or more. Wireless savings were realized by employees as well (they pay their own wireless bills) and everyone benefited from the service.

Key Facts:
• The real estate agency consisted of 35 people with 7 full time office professionals including an office administrator and receptionist.
• The real estate agency used their main telephone number on all of its listings so the receptionist received all initial inquires from potential purchasers, then, consulted a list to direct the call to an extension or more often took a message and then called the listing agent with the inquirer and their phone number.
• The receptionist maintained a comprehensive list of realtor phone numbers from cell phones to home phones. Central voice mail provided to all realtors was not always frequently used by all associates limiting its effectiveness;
• Realtors used their wireless phones extensively and routinely had bills well over $200 monthly that were personal business expenses, not reimbursed by the agency;
• Realtors even used their wireless phones at home, many had challenges with call quality at homes making communications with clients often "I’ll call you back";
• The office telephone system was almost 10 years old and parts and maintenance expenses had increased substantially over the past several years. Importantly too, the real estate agency needs a platform capable of providing other important services such as audio reviews of properties, and other expected additions;
• The Internet is increasingly important and the ability to boost speed and bandwidth an important goal of any telecom changes.

The Proximiti Solution
Proximiti met with the business manager of the office and several realtors to get a comprehensive review of the communications needs of the business and provided the following solution:
(a) A complete recommendation was provided to the office manager specifying a new 3600 phone system. Importantly, the 3600 is a hosted solution of Proximiti that doesn’t require the installation of new premise based switching equipment, all the real estate offices and realtors needed were handsets. Proximiti has a range of handsets to choose from including full featured phones, a receptionist console, and less expensive phones that were perfect for home offices;
(b) Proximiti provided the office manager with a web site that allowed easy configuration of services for the office and individual realtors;
(c) The system includes the capabilities to have realtor cell phones as extensions allowing the receptionist to instantly transfer incoming calls to any realtor, in or out of the office;
(d) Over 50% of the realtors opt to plug in a Proximiti phone into their home office and cable modems;
(e) When the receptionist transfers a call to a realtor, both the cell phone and the office phones for these realtors are dialed. If the realtor is working from home, they can answer their desk phone, thereby saving substantially on wireless minutes;
(f) Even if a realtor answers his or her cell phone first, at home, they can then walk back to their home office, and instantly transfer the call to their desk phone. This reduces wireless minutes of use but also insures a high quality connection for those that have poor cell phone reception at their houses;
(g) Conference calling is a snap from any Proximiti desktop phone making the daily chores of closing real estate deals much simpler and faster;
(h) Proximiti also provides the main office with a high speed data connection with savings of 25% below what they were paying and the unlimited local and long distance plans save substantially on monthly telecom spending. Proximiti ports existing telephone numbers and provides each realtor with an individual business telephone number that they can include on their business cards and the firm is considering including these numbers on their listing signs;
(i) Realtors report saving 30% or more on their wireless bills thereby increasing their monthly income.

Proximiti provides training materials for use of the system and works with the office manager with changes in the system configuration (new realtors primarily).

Quote from Office Manager:
"The Proximiti team delivered a great system, our office telecom spending is down 35%, and even including the lease payment on the new gear, overall telecom spending is down 20%. The receptionist is much more efficient and our realtors really appreciate the improved productivity, the instant connection with potential buyers, and best of all, the big savings on their wireless phone bills. The installation and set up of the system is very easy and we all wonder how we lived without it. A great tool, a company easy to work with, and one simple bill to review each month."