Propic’s mission with its Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is simple, but resolute.
To allow real estate agents to operate around the clock, give them back time to spend on high dollar-productive tasks and take a good agent and make them great.
For Propic Chief Commercial Officer, David Choi, the goal with the PropTech’s virtual concierge, CLAIRE by Propic, isn’t just to create another tool for agents to use, but a holistic solution to multiple pain points that rewrites the real estate playbook.
“We want to allow agents to operate 24/7, irrespective of location, language, with no barriers to time differences and preferred channels of communication,” he says.
“Technology is never going to be everything to everyone, and we’ll never replace every tool but, I think at the end of it, if we can deliver something that gives back time, creates value and delivers the outcome that the agents are looking for, and they don’t have to jump into five different tools, there’s a pretty strong, powerful message there.”
A whole new CLAIRE
And CLAIRE is well on her way to doing exactly that.
In late 2023, Propic announced that it had completely rebuilt CLAIRE and added more than 160 new features, including the ability to converse in 14 different languages, transcribe the conversations back into English and send them to agents.
This gives agents the ability to cater to a wider client pool and provide higher service levels.
Other features include responding to property enquiries in real-time, and having smart conversations on data trends, median prices, investment yields and more.
Now, David says CLAIRE has ‘grown smarter’ again.
“The two things that have become really powerful is the release of CLAIRE Vision, which is CLAIRE’s ability to be able to look at, interpret, understand and review imagery, including floor plans and documents,” he says.
“The second is lead augmentation, which delivers enhanced buyer enquiries, with additional information, that helps agents identify potential vendors more simply and easily.”
David says CLAIRE’s enhanced abilities make her much more than just a perceived chatbot tool.
Her ability to look at, and understand photographs means when a buyer enquires about a property listing, CLAIRE is able to use her knowledge to answer questions, not just based on what’s in the listing description, but what she can ‘see’ in the floor plan and the images.
“In traditional real estate, an agent might overlook details like a ’tiled roof or well presented lawn next to the driveway’ in their listing description,” he says.
“However, if someone inquires about the roof composition and other key features of the property, CLAIRE can provide precise details: ‘From the photo, it appears to have a tiled roof, a manicured front lawn, and a driveway on the side.’”
Using CLAIRE for copy
CLAIRE can also be used to create rich and engaging narratives, helping agents write ad copy, property descriptions and marketing collateral, including X, Instagram and other social media posts and tiles.
In this regard, David says CLAIRE incorporates listing information from the agency’s CRM about the property and combines that with any features the agent has missed, according to what she can ‘see’ in the photos.
Then, CLAIRE incorporates any relevant information from outside sources to create a well-rounded piece of copywriting, that the agent can then edit and adapt if needed.
“CLAIRE considers 1.7 trillion parameters,” David says.
“So it looks at things you might have missed from the photos, things that might be in the local area, things that might be in the surrounding area, information that might be locally specific on transport or that it’s 1.2km from the city.
“CLAIRE will instantly run that by what’s on the web, including the use of Propic’s national property data lake.
“What that looks like at agency level is, CLAIRE will instantaneously send them back a copy of the proposed text, including a QR code to direct customers to either the agency’s website or the online listing.
“An agent can then say, ‘I don’t want paragraphs, can you make it bullet points’.”
Empowering agents
David says CLAIRE gives agents the option to either write all of the marketing copy for them or make suggestions on how to improve what they’ve already written.
Agents can also ask for the copy to be written in a specific tone of voice or to suit specific buyer demographics.
“When we released CLAIRE Vision, the purpose was to empower agents,” David says.
“We wanted to have a tool that was not only able to talk about a raft of things connected to a property, whether the agent identified them or not, but to create some real time savings.”
David notes that even if agents don’t want to use CLAIRE’S copywriting capabilities, all of the enriched learning flows into how she manages customer enquiries and responds to customers around the clock.
For Place Kangaroo Point Lead Agent, Michael Hatzifotis, CLAIRE, or GaiLE as the virtual concierge is known in that network, has been a game-changer.
He says the biggest assistance GaiLE provides to him personally is managing early-stage buyer enquiries and qualifying who’s a serious buyer and who’s just browsing.
“GaiLE funnels the enquiries,” he says.
“GaiLE provides the automated response so that people understand more about the properties and we don’t get the calls or emails from people that are not suited to the property.
“She does that buyer management for us and we get the qualified buyers.”
Michael says GaiLE saves him time every day. Time that he’s then able to reinvest in other areas of his business.
“AI is taking real estate to the next level because it’s making us more efficient,” he says.
As well as her new Vision capabilities, CLAIRE now also has greater buyer management and lead augmentation.
Buyer management includes responding to emails and website enquiries, but also creating a microsite about a potential client’s property where further discussion can take place.
Lead augmentation with CLAIRE
But David says it’s with lead augmentation where CLAIRE really excels.
He says when an enquiry comes in on a property from the portals – realestate.com.au, Domain and view.com.au – not only does CLAIRE take care of the conversation and report everything back to the agent, she goes the extra mile and sources added data on who the potential client is, their possible contact details and the properties likely connected to them.
“What CLAIRE is able to do is say, ‘Here’s a summary of the topics I discussed with Johnny…here’s their real name, their full name, their email address and their phone number. They may also be associated with the following address. This property is most likely owner-occupied and not currently on the market. The current median price for that area is $1.13 million’, for example,” David explains.
David notes that a four-week controlled pilot of CLAIRE’s lead augmentation abilities returned serious numbers.
“There were 13,402 inquiries and from a time saving point of view there was about 670 hours in response time saved,” he says.
“Out of the 13,402, CLAIRE was able to ascertain and uncover 4256 potential vendor leads.
“CLAIRE delivered a match rate of 76.1 per cent, when national benchmarking is about 42 per cent.”
Stone Real Estate Tumbi Umbi Operations Manager, Alicia Thornton, says agents at their offices have been pleasantly surprised by CLAIRE’s abilities.
“There’s no other AI technology that we currently use, or have implemented, that provides this kind of data or information to us,” she says.
“Some of the agents have really been quite surprised with the additional information that she’s been able to provide for us.
“It just gives us a leg up when we are responding to that client that (we know) they potentially live in the Northern Beaches or one of the higher-end suburbs, so therefore they’re probably qualified to purchase this particular million dollar property.
“And she’s been very accurate with about an 80 per cent hit rate.”
Making good agents great
What does all this mean for agents?
David says CLAIRE can help not only level the playing field, but enable agents to overtake their competitors.
“An average agent, coupled with everything CLAIRE can do, all of a sudden can do everything a high end agent, with a team of 10, can do,” he notes.
“She should take a good agent and make them great.
“Of course, it’s not a silver bullet and we’re not going to take a poor agent and make them a superstar because they use CLAIRE.
“But, given the right agent with the right persona, and I think that’s probably 70 per cent of agents out there, CLAIRE can supercharge their business for sure.”
- To discover more about CLAIRE and how she might work in your business click here.
