AI receptionist for estate and letting agents

What is an AI receptionist for an estate agency?

An AI receptionist for an estate or letting agency picks up the phone, the website chat and the inbox when your negotiators cannot. It books viewings and market appraisals, answers the routine questions that fill a Saturday morning, takes messages, and puts urgent callers through to a person when you have told it to. In most branches the people who answer the phone are the same people who are out showing property. When both negotiators are on viewings and the manager is with a vendor, the line rings out, and the caller is usually holding a list of other agents. Kalvo answers at the first ring, on the number already printed on your boards and portal listings. It asks whether the caller is buying, selling, renting or reporting a problem, then handles each one the way you have set out. What it says is yours. The answers come from branch notes your team writes in ordinary English, so office hours, fees and how viewings work here stay accurate.

How does it handle viewing requests and applicant registration?

Buyers and tenants ring when it suits them, which is evenings and weekends, and often within minutes of a property going live on Rightmove or Zoopla. If the branch is closed, that enquiry goes to voicemail, and most callers will not leave one. Kalvo answers whenever the call comes. It confirms which property the caller has seen, books the viewing against the availability you have set, and sends a confirmation so the appointment holds. It registers the applicant properly at the same time: budget, bedrooms, the areas they will consider, and their position, whether that is nothing to sell, under offer, or a tenant working a notice period. Your negotiators start Monday with qualified applicants rather than a list of missed numbers. If a property is already under offer or the question needs a negotiator, Kalvo says so plainly, takes the caller's details and holds the message for the right person.

80% of callers sent to voicemail do not leave a message. Source: Forbes, 2014

Can it take valuation enquiries?

A valuation call is the one every agency wants: a homeowner who is thinking of selling or letting and has picked up the phone. It is also the caller least likely to wait. If your line is engaged or the branch has closed, the next number they try belongs to a competitor. Kalvo treats these calls as the priority they are. It captures the property in full, the address, the type, the number of bedrooms and anything the owner mentions about it, along with their timeframe and the best way to reach them. Where your diary allows it, Kalvo books the market appraisal there and then, so the caller ends the call with a confirmed visit rather than a promise of a call back. Every valuation enquiry lands with the branch as a complete record. Nobody has to reconstruct a lead from a first name and half a phone number on a message pad.

£1,200 the estimated cost of a single missed customer call. Source: BT Business research, 2014

Does it cover lettings and property management?

A managed portfolio generates calls at every hour, and most of them are repairs. Kalvo takes the report in full: the property, the tenant, what has gone wrong, how long it has been happening, and the access details a contractor will need. What counts as an emergency is decided by your rules, not the software's judgement. A major leak, no heating in winter, or a break-in goes straight through to your on-call contact, whether that is a member of staff or your out-of-hours contractor. Everything else holds for the morning. A dripping tap at midnight is logged, acknowledged and queued for the property manager, and nobody's evening is interrupted for it. Tenants get a consistent answer at any hour, which is most of what a tenant ringing out of hours actually wants: to know the problem is recorded and something will happen.