Real estate agents are always on the move, so staying connected with clients can be a challenge. Now RiTA, your AI digital assistant, is available as an app, helping you to find the best people in your CRM to talk to, and delivering conversational SMS functionality to help scale your prospecting efforts - all from your phone. RiTA's Product Manager, Phoebe Henshall, takes us through the brand-new RiTA app, its best features and benefits, and how it differs from the desktop or mobile web experience.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your Role?
Yes of course, as a Product Manager at RiTA my role in its simplest form is to listen to customers and take onboard their feedback to create solutions that enable agents and agencies to generate more conversations, leads and ultimately more sales.
RiTA works by integrating with the agency CRM, and finding the best people for an agent to talk to, based on our various algorithms. An agent can then choose whether to call that contact or to use our conversational SMS functionality to scale their prospecting efforts and drive more leads. And now, RiTA is an app available on IOS and soon to be available on Android too.
Q. What was your main goal in creating this app?
The RiTA app is designed with the aim of enabling agents to work seamlessly, even when they are on the move. Our goal was to help agents find and connect with their top contacts in a more personalised and efficient way. By leveraging our app, agents can scale their outreach efforts and receive notifications of recently listed or sold properties, making their prospecting even more effective. We also understand the importance of speed in lead conversion, which is why our app offers real-time push notifications to ensure agents can take action on leads quickly.
Q. How does this differ from the desktop or Mobile web experience?
This is not just the same RiTA in an app form, it’s a whole new evolution of RiTA that is designed to be more agent-centric than ever before. By leveraging the mobility of an app, we empower agents to work with RiTA while they are on the move - and agents are always on the move. On top of that, we have completed very detailed user research at every stage of the app development to ensure that wading into the RiTA unknown is a lot more fun and intuitive for agents.
Q. What were the most popular features during the beta tests?
One of the most popular features was the integration of CoreLogic RP Data, which allowed agents to conduct geographic searches and access up-to-date information on property owners to augment their CRM. This integration also enabled us to introduce a new search and select feature, which was a hit among our beta testers. Agents could now call and SMS their contacts in just a few seconds, making it easier and faster for them to connect with potential clients.
Another key piece of feedback we received was on the push notifications feature. We aimed to drive higher engagement through the app using push notifications, particularly in lead delivery. Our beta testers confirmed that the push notifications were improving the speed at which agents responded to leads. In fact, one of our beta testers revealed that prior to using the app, it took him 24-48 hours to respond to leads. However, since downloading the app, he was able to reduce that time to just hours and felt more on top of things. This is exactly the kind of feedback and results we wanted to see.
Our daily alerts on just-listed or just-sold properties also garnered a lot of attention. Agents could stay up to date on market activity in their area and create actionable call and SMS lists to reach out to potential clients.
Q. I noticed the app is available on IOS, when can we expect a release on Android devices?
Our development team have done an amazing job to get this first iteration of the app out in the app store and I promise our customers that this is the next plan on our roadmap to launch to the Google Play store too if you want to be alerted when this is happening you can sign up for updates here.
If you’re an existing RITA customer make sure you download the app today to get started. If you would like to add RiTA to your team, speak to us today to book a demo here.