December 14, 2018

Bard's Story

Welcome to Contactually's Story series! This is where Contactually's clients tell you what Contactually looks from their point of view. They share their challenges, triumphs, and top tips and tricks. We're proud to feature Bard Williams from Alain Pinel Realtors. Enjoy!

What are you proudest of from the last year?

I think we’ve done a really good job of listening to what our agents need.  We’re based in Silicon Valley, and everyone has their antenna up for emerging technology is coming out and how it can help them.  We’ve not only introduced them to the latest tools but helped coach them on how those tools can help them grow their businesses. And a lot of that is supported by the high-quality training my team provides.

Why did you need Contactually?

We have a “hub and spoke” technology ecosystem, where we try to plug in the best-in-class tools.  We know that as technology moves along, we may want to remove and replace -- and strengthen -- any one of those spokes.  We try to find the best tools that will help our agents be successful, and we’re very focused on the agent experience. We felt Contactually -- both the software itself and the training/onboarding experience -- was the best CRM option on the market.

What were your results with Contactually?

Our adoption curve is up and to the right -- and it’s been really quick.  The agents are adopting this faster than most other technology rollouts we’ve done in the past.  I think that’s because they’re seeing value right away, and our partnership on the rollout has been really strong.  For example, an agent recently set up Contactually, and sent out a ScaleMail to 30 past clients; immediately she got 10 responses -- more than any other outreach before.  

The Contactually team took the time to understand our rollout plans and were super good partners.  They’re an order of magnitude better than any of the other vendors we work with. They focused on the why.  There is a learning curve with any product, but we’ve had a lot of positive discussions about ways to introduce Contactually to agents and collaborated on highly personalized training to adjust the message to focus more on agent benefits.  It’s one of the main reasons we’ve seen such high adoption and success so far.

Any tips or tricks for using Contactually?

We created a resource-filled library on our intranet featuring best practices on how to use Contactually.  It really helps with overcoming the initial obstacles to adoption and getting started. We also offer a lot of different ways to learn:  videos, 1-1s, guides we’ve created, webinar recordings, in-person classes. Whatever the agent’s’ learning style, we can meet them where they are.  You can’t just create a one-size-fits-all training solution.