How to organise open-home follow-ups with automation

Start with the registration

The quality of the follow-up depends on what is captured at the door. Ask only for what you need to follow up, and tell people how their details will be used.

If your agency is covered by the Privacy Act, the OAIC explains (opens in a new tab) that organisations may collect only personal information reasonably necessary for their work, collection must be lawful and fair, and people should be told matters such as the purpose of collection. A short notice on the registration screen covers this far better than silent collection.

Not every small agency is covered by the Act. The OAIC's small business guidance (opens in a new tab) explains the turnover threshold and the exceptions that can apply, so check rather than assume.

An illustrative follow-up workflow

The steps below show one way to organise the process. Adjust timing and wording to suit your agency and local practice.

Duplicates and communication preferences

The same buyer may attend several homes, register with a different email, or already exist in your CRM from a portal enquiry. Without matching, they receive three acknowledgements and the agent sees three records.

Agree simple matching rules, such as phone number plus name, and send uncertain matches to a person to merge rather than letting the system guess. Respect communication preferences: if someone asked for email only, do not send SMS.

Sample acknowledgement copy

Keep the acknowledgement short and factual. This example is illustrative; write your own in your agency's voice.

• Example: Hi Alex, thanks for visiting 12 Example Street today. Your agent will be in touch soon. If you would prefer not to receive messages about this property, reply STOP.

If acknowledgements or later messages are commercial in nature, the Spam Act 2003 (opens in a new tab) sets rules for consent, accurate sender information and a functional unsubscribe facility. Identify your agency clearly and get advice if you are unsure how the rules apply to your messages.

What should stay personal

Automation should handle the acknowledgement and the task list, not the relationship. The follow-up conversation, answering questions about the property, discussing price expectations and understanding what a buyer is looking for should come from the agent.

Do not use automation to rate or rank buyers, or to decide who is a serious prospect. Those are judgements for the agent, based on conversations, not on an automated assessment of registration data.

Failure scenarios and stop rules

Test what happens when things go wrong before you rely on the workflow. Each scenario below should have a defined outcome.

• The tablet loses connection: registrations queue and sync later without duplicates
• A phone number or email is invalid: no further messages, and the record is flagged
• An attendee replies with a question: the reply goes to the agent, not into a void
• An attendee opts out: all messages about that property stop
• The property sells or is withdrawn: pending sequences for it end
• The responsible agent is away: tasks reassign to a named colleague

Ownership and measurement

Name one person who owns the workflow: they keep the acknowledgement wording current, check that tasks are reaching agents and decide when rules change. Without an owner, small problems such as a broken registration link can go unnoticed for weeks.

Measure what the workflow is meant to improve. Useful signals include how quickly attendees receive an acknowledgement, how many follow-up tasks are completed within your agreed time, how many duplicate contacts are created and how many people opt out. A rise in opt-outs usually means the timing or tone needs adjusting.

Review the results after a few weekends, with the agents who use it, and adjust before rolling the workflow out across every listing.

Next steps

Most of this workflow depends on your CRM. Before connecting anything, read what to ask before connecting AI to your real estate CRM. When you are ready, explore specialists for real estate agencies or see how the free 15-minute consultation works.