So this is the year that time management is going to be crucial for me. If I cannot gain control over my time, then I’m likely to stay mired in my own particular mode of real estate mediocrity, and that would suck rocks.
But, not to worry for I have found a tool that I think will be helpful to Realtors, and while I’m just getting started with TimeDriver, the response from clients and colleagues is “Wow! I love that.” And that’s plenty reason to keep a tool around, but I’m beginning to see how I could use it for a lot of real estate applications. Bloodhound Disclaimer: I don’t get any kickbacks for sharing this. There’s no affiliation program that I’m aware of, and I’m not in contact with the company except I signed up and use it. I simply want to share a tool that I’ve found useful.
TimeDriver is called a personal scheduler. From their site:
TimeDriver is a revolutionary appointment invitation system that will compel your customers and community to schedule time with you. By embedding a “schedule now” button in email messages and on Web pages, you’ll drive more appointments with fewer hassles than ever before.
Basically, it’s an online calendar that you set up to schedule time as you want. Your clients can then access the calendar through a unique url, and they can schedule time with you themselves, bypassing the flying email and phone tag time sink. It gives the client control and that’s a good thing in a real estate transaction, right? You can also push clients to schedule their own appointments with “Schedule Now” embeddable buttons. TimeDriver will then sync the appointment with your Outlook or Google Calendar, with plans to bring SalesForce and Lotus Notes on board as well. Butwaittheresmore! TimeDriver will then send you an email, alerting you when an appointment is scheduled, and reminding both of you when the appointment is approaching.
The first time I saw TimeDriver was when I called a photographer to schedule an appointment. She sent me the link to her TimeDriver calendar. It was an empowering experience to schedule my own appointment, and that’s been the reaction of people with whom I share my TimeDriver links.
I can see using this in real estate applications to schedule phone calls, office meetings, property showings, closings, inspections. I’m preparing to list a property that is going to require some maintenance prior to listing. I’m going to try it as an individual property calendar, creating a unique calendar url for that property, and send it out to anyone who needs to schedule time at the property, also keeping the client in the loop, as I create and share Google Calendars for my clients.
There’s a 90-day free trial waiting for you, after that it’s a reasonable $29.95 annual fee.
Anyone else using this? What’s been your experience? If you do use it, now or in the future, please let us know your thoughts.
Tom Johnson says:
I am still puzzling how to combine this with my biggest time sink, which is Houston drive times. I guess I could start doing the grand tour thing, “If it’s Wednesday, it must be Sugar Land. If it’s Thursday, we are inside the loop.” I need to play with this idea maybe adding virtual offices at strategic Starbuck’s locations and creating “branch office hours” for those locations.
Once again, Teri, thanks for a great add to the gumbo.
January 21, 2010 — 9:49 pm
Dan Connolly says:
To begin, time management is my biggest challenge as well. Being able to schedule time for all of the necessary tasks, while keeping up with the demands of, and the obligations to the current clients, and the inquiries of the new potential clients, has never been easy for me.
This program seems really interesting, and I can see how the clients will like it. It makes sense for scheduling 15 minute introductory calls, but showing property? I need to talk to them before I want agree to jump in the car and go meet them.
January 21, 2010 — 10:22 pm
Dean Ouellette says:
This has some amazing potential. Can you set up templates? If so your each property idea has even more power, doing short sale listings can set up benchmarks as templates and update, there seems to be some cool ideas for this. Would like to see a follow up post in a month or two
January 21, 2010 — 11:52 pm
Teri Lussier says:
The true power in this tool is in the client experience. I would have looked at a post like this and thought, “Nice.” But the first time I used it was as a *client*, and even as an experienced client-side appointment maker, to not have to sit on hold, listening to the sound of scheduling book pages being flipped, and have that nauseating conversation:
“When is good for you?”
Is that the dumbest question? I’m calling to find out when is good for YOU. Even if you throw your own calendar out the window and say “Anytime, doesn’t matter.” Typically, the response is, “Well let’s see…” Followed by the ticking clock. This annoys the “D” in me.
To have someone say to me, “Here’s my calendar, schedule a time that works for you” and leave me alone to do that, is a liberating, empowering, light-years-ahead-of-the-herd customer service experience. I wish everyone would use this. Dear Doctors, are you listening?
Dan- showing properties- I agree you want to have that conversation first. When presented with a new toy, er uh, tool, I’m always trying to figure out how to work it. I’m wondering if would work for an indie ofc to use for agents to schedule in lieu of having the phone conversations we have here. “When would you like to see it? Okay, I have to call the owner and confirm… blah blah blah”. This would take one phone call out of that equation?
Dean, No templates. The product is still in beta. 😉
Perhaps TimeDriver will hear your request. I’d love to be able to personalize the url. Currently they are auto-generated gobbledygook.
Tom, you need an assistant. Or a limo driver. 🙂
January 22, 2010 — 5:37 am
Julia says:
I like it a lot in theory (especially, as you said, looking at it from the client side) but I’m not sure it’s practical for me because of all the time differentials in different types of RE appts. Showing a buyer one house downtown: 30 minutes, showing a buyer one house in the suburbs: 90 minutes, listing a house downtown: 120 minutes.
I’d also like to hear how it works out for you.
January 22, 2010 — 10:10 am
Teri Lussier says:
Hi Julia-
Sean Purcell talks about the importance of daily and weekly time blocking to accomplish certain tasks. You block off time to meet clients for whatever they need, you could create blocks of .5 hr increments and tell your clients how much time to expect for their appt. They can schedule 2 or 4 blocks of time.
I don’t think every client is going to appreciate this, but those who do, will be bowled over by it.
January 22, 2010 — 10:40 am
Liz Welty says:
Hi Teri!
Thanks so much for your lovely posting! We’re very happy to see how much you have been enjoying the application.
We did just launch our TimeDriver for Salesforce Connector too! (http://bit.ly/7fYf3w)
Hello Tom,
With TimeDriver, you can create as many different types of activities (or Schedule Books), each just referencing a specific configuration you define, within your account; and everything is linked to one centralized calendar.
You can then create a Schedule Book just for Sugar Land Visits and another for Inside the Loop. Although, we don’t yet have “padding time” functionality, which would allow you to factor in drive time (coming soon in our Professional Edition of TimeDriver), you can specifically set your schedule to accommodate time between appointments!
Hi Dean,
It will depend on your specific needs for templates. You can create a master Schedule Book, from which you can copy all of your new Schedule Books (saving potentially a lot of setup time). Also, if you use Outlook, we have a nifty Connector for Outlook that will allow you to manage “almost” everything from Outlook itself – even create new personalized one-time invitations on the fly! This would allow you to use any pre-existing Outlook templates you’ve already created too.
Hi Julia,
As you can have a virtually unlimited number of Schedule Books in your account, each with its own specific duration and availability schedule, TimeDriver will allow you to create and send a specific invitation to your client:
“Dear Emily, Please click here (hyperlink not included) to schedule your preferred time for our meeting.”
All the leg work and heavy lifting is done behind the scenes – all your client sees is the specific invitation to your 30min, 60min, 120min, etc. appointment. 🙂
Also, for all,
Each Schedule Book you create will have its own unique URL to provide to your clients for access. While the application does generate a random code, you can fairly easily and cheaply create a custom URL to hide the gobbledygook string – and keep your clients on your site too! We dislike like page abandonment just like everyone else.
We also have a super excited and rocking support team that would love to help with any and all questions! Email our team at Support@TimeDriver.com!
Enjoy!
Liz
– TimeDriver
January 22, 2010 — 11:15 am
Teri Lussier says:
Hi Liz-
Awesome information. Thanks so much for stopping by and clarifying a few points, and giving us a few tips for using this to its fullest.
Custom url… why didn’t I think of that?
January 22, 2010 — 12:15 pm
Mike Mullin says:
Teri, great recommendation! A lot of my clients contact me first by email and one of the challenges is moving them off that form of communication and onto the phone or in person. I think offering the ability to schedule their own time to talk will boost the conversation dramatically. Easy to sign up for trial account – took me about 15 minutes. Thanks!
January 23, 2010 — 4:43 pm
Ben Winfield says:
Thanks for the great info about this product. As others have mentioned, moving from email to phone is a big step in the process of turning a lead into a *good* lead. It just means if they schedule a phone conversation, we better be there!
Thanks again!
January 24, 2010 — 1:47 pm