According to Zillow New Construction’s Consumer Housing Trends Report 2023, 69% of new construction buyers in 2022 said they prefer to unlock properties with their mobile phones and tour them in person on their own time. And, 68% said they prefer to schedule in-person tours online.
If the majority of new home shoppers desire to self-tour during their first visit to a community, how can an Online Sales Counselor (OSC) assist in ensuring that self-touring leads schedule an onsite sales appointment?
Using Self-Guided Tours to Generate More Engagement
The UTour platform offers home shoppers the ability to self-tour immediately (assuming they are present in the community) or schedule a self-service, on-demand tour at a future time. However, builders still possess a large database of leads generated from online sources, such as their website, internet listing sites (e.g., Zillow, Realtor.com, and NewHomeSource.com), and social media.
As Online Sales Counselors (OSCs) strive to cultivate these leads and secure an onsite sales appointment, the average lead-to-appointment conversion rate in the industry is around 36% (as reported by our friends at Do You Convert). This indicates that 64% of the leads captured remain unresponsive and stagnant toward the OSC's efforts to schedule an onsite sales appointment.
To address this challenge, OSCs can leverage the fact that 69% of new home shoppers prefer to tour homes unassisted — at their own convenience. A valuable tactic to re-engage unresponsive leads is to encourage them to self-tour available models and quick delivery homes. Many of our participating home builders on UTour have reported significant success in nurturing unresponsive leads towards self-touring their homes.
Verified, Quality Lead Data Makes OSC Follow-Up More Effective
When new home shoppers opt for self-touring, the follow-up communication from an Online Sales Counselor (OSC) can be more effective because it provides the OSC with valuable lead data that is not typically available from most online lead sources. At the conclusion of each self-guided home tour, UTour's CRM integration results in the delivery of the following information:
- The verified name, email address, mobile phone number and current physical address of the home shopper using our ID verification process
- The community, plan name and address of the self-toured home
- The self-tour visit date and time
- The duration of time in the home during the self-tour
- The engagement data from optional self-tour A.I. text or voice assistants (if applicable)
The details obtained from the self-touring process are automatically delivered to the home builder's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, providing Online Sales Counselors (OSCs) with a wealth of information about each self-touring lead. This allows OSCs to tailor their follow-up communication more effectively and increase the likelihood of converting these leads into appointments with sales teams.
A Valuable Resource to Support OSCs
At UTour, our mission is to reduce friction in the new homebuying process and provide the convenient shopping experience that today's homebuyers demand. We believe that achieving this will result in more sales for homebuilders, which is our ultimate goal. We also recognize the crucial and valuable role played by the OSC in the success of homebuilders.
To support OSCs in implementing self-guided home tours and ultimately achieving more sales appointments, we have developed the OSC Guide To Self-Guided Home Tours. We understand that each builder has their own unique needs and processes; however, this guide will provide you with a starting point — derived from best practices and real-time feedback — which you can then modify and customize to your specific needs.
If you want to learn more about how UTour can help your online sales program, schedule a demo today.
