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  • ERA Agents Sell More Property Using Palm Handheld Solution.

    Realxchange Increases Productivity by 50 percent, reduces costs and enhances customer service.

    Real estate agents belonging to one of Singapore's top property agencies, ERA, have benefited from a mobile database solution, running on the Palm OS" platform, that empowers them with the ability to capitalise more swiftly on sales opportunities. ERA agents are now able to provide faster and better service to customers, hence increasing the number of properties each of them can sell.

  • "We wanted to develop an easy-to-use solution that could provide all the information and applications a real estate agent needs, is affordable and highly mobile. The combination of Realxchange and a Palm handheld was an ideal solution we were looking for."

    Mr Stephen Tsang
    Chief Technology Officer
    REALVision

    The Challenge
    The nature of a real estate agent's job is highly mobile and customer-driven. The main challenge facing agents is to instantly answer customer queries about properties on sale. Customer expectations have also gone up with the onset of technology, and real estate agents have to find a way of harnessing technology to bring the level of professionalism in the industry to another level.

    This change in customer expectations also means that real estate agents have to provide more and detailed information on the properties on sale, including requests to view every property suggested by the agent. Basically, being in the highly competitive environment today requires an agent to be able to provide their customers with accurate information on the spot.

    "To win customers, our agents must have immediate answers," said David Goh, Senior Vice President for Marketing, ERA Realty Network. "They can't afford to waste time in sourcing and providing property and financial information and keep their customers waiting."

    The Solution
    Believing that technology could help the agency maintain its lead in the industry, ERA deployed ERAMAN, powered by Realxchange, a database solution customised to meet the specific needs of the real estate vertical market.

    Realxchange was created by Singapore-based Eon InfoTech, for use on handhelds supporting the Palm OS platform. ERA selected Palm® IIIc handhelds because of the device's colour display, which provides customers with a vivid representation of properties on sale. The company is also considering the deployment of the elegant and expandable Palm m505 handhelds, especially with its energy-efficient colour screen, providing three to four weeks of average use on a single charge.

    Eon InfoTech, a wireless and mobile Internet application service provider, developed the solution for the real estate industry. The solution provides the customisation required to meet the needs of other countries and cultures, for example, different languages or different housing types.

    "We wanted to develop an easy-to-use solution that could provide all the information and applications a real estate agent needs, is affordable and highly mobile. The combination of Realxchange and a Palm handheld was an ideal solution we were looking for," said Danny Lim, Director of Realxchange Int'l.

    The key features of Realxchange:
    • Quick Search of thousands of Property Listings up to 30 days.
    • User-friendly filter function for refined searches such as Blocks, Project names, Room Types, Contacts, Remarks and many more.
    • Customer Management System for fast reference.
    • Accurate Mortgage Calculator with yearly HPIS (Home Protection Insurance Scheme).
    • More than 800 Condo projects with extensive details such as Tenure, Developer, Sizes, Facilities, Average Transactions and many more.
    • Agents may download their data anytime, anywhere with Palm's HotSync" technology or through an IR-enabled mobile phone.
    • The agency is also able to disseminate time-critical information to their agents.

    The Outcome
    With thousands of agents jostling for sales in this highly competitive industry, ERA wanted to ensure its dynamic sales force had a reputation for excellent customer service, and most importantly, empowering them with a relevant, mobile and innovative sales tool. Using Realxchange, ERA agents can access updated property listings daily and calculate home loans on the spot.

    "With Realxchange, our agents have all the data and information they need in their Palm handhelds. This helps them save costs, increase sales and provide better customer service," added Mr. Goh.

    Within the first six months of the launch of Realxchange, Eon InfoTech attracted more than 600 users, and there are now more than 1,000 agents using the solution. Eon InfoTech plans to deploy another 1,200 Palm handhelds running Realxchange by end 2001.

    "Mobile computing solutions on the Palm OS platform, such as Eon InfoTech's Realxchange mobile database solution, are clearly changing the ways in which companies manage back-end processes, and provide new and powerful options for enhancing the customer's experience," concluded Frankie Liow, marketing manager, South Asia, Palm, Inc.

    About ERA Realty Network
    ERA Real Estate, which has over 1,100 agents and exclusive listings of more than 3,000 properties, has been setting industry standards since it started business here way back in 1982 with many innovative products and services. They include the introduction of a 24-hour international property search system, a wireless communication system to provide instantaneous real estate information, the Real Estate Sales System training, the "Open" House marketing concept, the Exclusive marketing concept, the WAP service to check property listings via the mobile phone, and the Hersing Property Online on TCS Teletext.

    For more information, please visit: http://www.era.com/.

    About Eon InfoTech
    Eon InfoTech Pte Ltd has undertaken various projects across different industries, including web development, content creation, payment gateways, database management but more importantly, wireless communication and mobile technology.

    The core management team of Eon InfoTech Pte Ltd hails from various disciplines in IT with more than 100 years of experience in total. We are also expanding internationally and setting up offices in US and Japan, with the first being InfoTech Partners Sdn Bhd in Malaysia.