REINCheck

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VO
You're listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice, Contracts and Industry Specialist at REIN, where you get the latest member news and information delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.

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Andrea Rice
Hello and welcome to REINCheck. I'm your host, Andrea Rice, and today we are checking in with REIN’s Marketing Director, Tiffany Thompson, to talk about something that we're actually really excited about, and that is the new REIN.com. And it's packed with features that make a real difference not only for you, our REIN members, but for your clients as well. So thank you, Tiffany, so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today. I know you and your team have put a lot of time and effort into making this new REIN.com come to life, so I really appreciate you being here.

00;00;54;29 - 00;00;57;12
Tiffany Thompson
Absolutely. It's my pleasure.

00;00;57;14 - 00;01;10;19
Andrea Rice
So Tiffany, the new REIN.com of course was built with REIN members in mind. So what are some of the biggest changes they can expect that will make their business easier and more effective?

00;01;10;22 - 00;03;09;02
Tiffany Thompson
Well, we are super excited about the new site because we're able to bring in some new features that we think will make search so much easier for clients, potential clients, consumers, and just so much faster so that our members' listings can be found quickly and that people can interact with them. We really want them to spend more time engaging the site and engaging their listings so that we can drive more leads. So one of the features that we put right up front is our activated voice search. So it's AI-powered. And the very unique thing about this particular integration is that you can search traditionally. So you can say, I'm looking for a house with, you know, three bedrooms, two baths. Or you can search by lifestyle. So you can say, you know, I have three kids. I have a huge dog who likes to run and play outside. My budget is $1 million and it will return properties with big yards. Or maybe near dog parks. So we really just as the technology grows in general, I'm very proud that REIN continually challenges. Itself to push those boundaries. To. Bring. Features that we think will really. Help our members, you know. Support. Their businesses. The second feature we're really excited about is interactive maps. So now at a glance you can take a look at the map of the area that we serve and just select the city that you want to live in, and it will automatically bring up all of those listings. So ideally, you know, your consumer is able at the very first page before making any scroll whatsoever, they're able to search very specifically. And, the way they want to search. And so we're really excited to be able to bring those features. to our members.

00;03;09;04 - 00;03;30;18
Andrea Rice
Yeah, I love it. It's such a is such a big change and big improvement. And just I can see where this is really going to positively impact our members and the general public who is who is out there searching for properties. And one of the other exciting updates is the leads dashboard. Can you walk us through what that is and how that works?

00;03;30;21 - 00;04;55;25
Tiffany Thompson
Absolutely. So one of the things we wanted to do with this website was to give our members more transparency as it related to what was actually happening with their listings. And now with a login, a single sign-on login, members can access the leads dashboard, which will show individuals who have interacted with their listings. It will provide information on how many views that listing has, how many clicks it's gotten, how many people have requested information about a listing. And this just helps it helps in two ways. One, as I said, to show transparency. It helps us to have the metrics that we need to know how to push traffic to our website. But it also helps because if you find that one listing in particular is really doing very well and it's not related only to location or price, there may be something in your description that is really converting very well on that listing based on the data that you can now see. You might choose to update how you write your other listings. So there's it also allows for optimization. So our job, our goal is to drive leads at no charge to our members. And anything we can do to help support that, providing information, you know, we're excited to do.

00;04;55;27 - 00;05;26;06
Andrea Rice
Yeah, I love that. That's such a deeper insight that people can get. And I love that example of, you know, you can take a look at it and see what's working. Just, I can see that being a huge, huge benefit to our members. So obviously we know the real estate marketplace. It's a crowded area. So what do these updates mean for our members and their ability to stand out and attract clients? Like what does it mean for them in a real-world application?

00;05;26;08 - 00;06;50;11
Tiffany Thompson
Sure. You know, this is an attention economy and we don't have a lot of patience or time as consumers. And so we really need to make sure that we are able to design our platforms for consumers to have maximum efficiency and convenience. And that's what we are trying to do with this site. So, you know, if you can use your voice to search it's just a lot faster than typing, or searching, or using filters., right. And if you can, instead of typing in a zip code, if you can just select Chesapeake, or Norfolk, or. Hampton, you know, it's just that ease of use. That number one, says to the consumer, you know, we care about your time. And number two, it gets that listing in front of the consumer faster. And so the faster we can do that, the more efficiently we can do that the more listings they can view the better off we are as far as, you know, driving those leads to our members. So we're always going to do whatever we can to make that efficient. And I think that's really, you know, what separates this site from the last site, you know, and it's so exciting. I'm just really interested in taking a look at how people are really interacting with the site. And we'll know more about that in the days to come.

00;06;50;13 - 00;06;59;11
Andrea Rice
Yeah, it is very exciting. And, you know, what do you see as far as REIN.com looking ahead and moving forward?

00;06;59;14 - 00;08;22;00
Tiffany Thompson
Well one thing that I say to everyone in my shop on my team is I say, you know, these tools will never get worse. And what I mean is to say, when you look at things like AI and you look at current technologies that we have, let's say the mic that's on our site. Or the voice search on our site, or the interactive maps that are on our site. Advancements will continue to occur. This is the worst quote, unquote it will ever be, right. So that's very exciting because it means we will be able to deliver our services our listings will be able to deliver those things more efficiently to our consumers and hopefully in a more in a way that's easy for them to access, you know, I can envision a day where probably you don't interact with the computer with your hands at all. It really all is natural language, voice search. And these products, you know, one of the things we're excited about with the partner that we have is that they're continually trying to improve their products and their platform. And so we will be pushing them. We will be making sure we stay on task and keep their foot on the gas so that we can be ahead of the curve in our market to the benefit of our members.

00;08;22;03 - 00;08;39;06
Andrea Rice
Right. And for those of you that don't know, Tiffany is our resident in-house AI guru. So when she says that she's going to stay on top of them, believe it, believe it. So we will have, I'm sure, many more improvements because, she is she is our resident guru.

00;08;39;08 - 00;09;22;17
Tiffany Thompson
I know, I know, I get a lot of grief. When did it come out, in like 20—was it like 2022, I want to say? And I remember coming to work and being, have you guys seen this? Oh my gosh. And everyone kind of looked at me like. And then after that I was the AI person in meetings. What is she going to say about AI. But it really is a transformative technology. And I am so lucky to work every day at REIN because we embrace new technology, we embrace what's. next. And that's just so fulfilling. And it's exciting. I know I've said exciting like 13 times so we may have to get someone to edit that out.

00;09;22;20 - 00;09;58;24
Andrea Rice
So well we did say upfront that this was exciting information, so we did not we did not lead you astray. So, Tiffany, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today and share with our members once again, the exciting new features of REIN.com, and I want to thank you and your whole team. Really, because I know you guys put in a ton of work to make this happen. And get this out. It is not just a benefit to our members but to consumers as well. So thank you for making this happen. And do you have any parting thoughts? Before we go.

00;09;58;26 - 00;10;30;12
Tiffany Thompson
I just want to say thank you. I want to thank my team, obviously. I want to thank product support. I want to thank everyone who participated, and I want to thank members because I am getting feedback and folks are reaching out directly. And that's we love that. So our goal is to provide the best possible product that we can, and we are grateful and appreciative of feedback when we receive it and when we can implement it we certainly do. And we hope to just keep getting better.

00;10;30;14 - 00;11;09;21
Andrea Rice
Yes, yes. Thank you. Tiffany. And it's clear that this was not just a facelift. It was really bringing powerful tools to grow our members' businesses and provide consumers with the best possible search experience. So I want to thank you, Tiffany, and I want to thank all of you out there for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of REINCheck, and if you have missed any of the previous episodes, I do invite you to go to REINMLS.com to take a listen, and if you haven't done so already, please make sure you subscribe to REINCheck so you get new episodes delivered directly to you when they're released. Thank you and have a great rest of your day.

00;11;09;24 - 00;11;24;28
VO
You've been listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice. Stay in the know from those who know. Delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.