Two agencies have introduced robotic virtual assistants, or ‘bots’, to their offerings.
JLL has launched a virtual property manager for its tenants in a trial on two of its private rented sector schemes, One Eighty in Stratford and Queen Street in Leicester.
Another agent is offering – and backing – ‘robot’ software that can undertake a number of tasks, including viewings.
JLL has partnered with artificial intelligence software firm EBI.AI to provide a “property bot” that can be used to log problems such as a leaky tap or malfunctioning boiler, to book contractors, and to help tenants fix simple property problems.
Tenants will be able to contact the virtual assistant through Amazon Alexa and messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
It can even work in different languages by using Google translate to transmit messages back to the agency.
Meanwhile, London agency LiFE Residential has given financial backing to a new virtual assistant for estate agents.
LiFE Residential has been trialling the Blyng chatbot across its ten offices for the past three months and has now used its proptech investment arm LiFE Ventures to take part in a £500,000 seed fundraising for the software.
The Blyng chatbot can be used to arrange a valuation or schedule viewings and can pre-qualify vendors, buyers, landlords and tenants by asking generic questions about their budget and needs.
It can also provide property information, details on nearby transportation and details of local amenities on listings.
In just 12 weeks, Blyng’s virtual assistant is said to have processed 6,400 leads, engaged with over 1,900 users, handled 28,800 questions and answers, and scheduled more than 1,700 viewings mostly out of the office hours, for the agency.
Jonathan Werth, managing director of LiFE Residential, said: “Testing and using Blyng is the beginning of the future way of doing business.
“They have come up with a great soft touch to engage at the time the client wants, and how they want to be communicated with.”
The virtual assistant works with an agency’s own website, and portals such as Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket.
It is also compatible with Facebook Messenger, mobile webchat, and soon on WhatsApp.
Blyng provides branch managers with monthly user reports detailing the number of leads interacting with the virtual assistant and the number of viewings and valuation scheduled
It has also attracted venture capital funds from Pi Labs and Ascension Ventures.
Julien Vidal, co-founder of Blyng, said: “Blyng is not here to replace negotiators as a human interaction is key in building true client relationships.
“However, we do offer a technical edge for estate agents by improving the user experience and helping them to book viewings and valuations before the competition.”
Comments (11)
Chatbots are just another way to make money from us agents. Most of the ones I have used (for other things but also tried it as a pretend user for an estate agency to see if it would be good for us) I was totally frustrated. I thought these chatbots were manned 24/7 NO. And when I did speak to someone in chat I may be wrong but think they are a call centre as they didn’t know much (beyond a script it felt) about the property. If we are going to have a chat model then it needs to manned by real, people from the office they represent otherwise we may as well use email. To be honest the chatbot was mostly offline (that I tried – and a few) and after I asked a question it told me they would contact me soon so it IS A GLORIFIED EMAIL SYSTEM. Don’t waste your money!
Thanks for your comment Anthony. Our product is a little different to others in that you are talking to a computer that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to better engage directly the portal enquiries. It scans all the available information online and in the listing to answer any questions the lead has and will pencil in a viewing for the agent.
Would you like a demo and free trial?
ah@blyng.io
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” – Hal
It’s interesting tech. What happens to the data will be even more interesting.
Thanks Dude. The data we build up is available for the agents to use, however, we do also offer a regular report giving a full analysis and break down of engagement over the previous month. Happy to offer you a free trial – ah@blyng.io
Do they qualify for sick pay and pension?
Chatbots is ground breaking technology that, like all AI, has the ability to ‘learn’ ie., the more it is used, and the more knowledge it acquires, the more efficient it becomes.
Well done to the agents who are the trail blazers in using it.
Spot on comment Harree our virtual assistant is constantly learning and improving the way in which it interacts with leads – all directly from the portal enquires. If you would like to find out more please email me – ah@blyng.io
My bath is leaking!!!
Iam sorry I didn’t understand that.
“Did you say the weather is bleak?”
Dont we already have chatbot? Isnt that Purplebricks twitter feed?