ShowingTime Simplifies Your Life and Your Fellow Realtors

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How much time do you waste every week chasing down listing agents to schedule showings? If you’re like most of us, scheduling a showing on a property listed by someone else goes like this:
  • You spot a property that would be perfect for one of your clients. You call the listing agent and leave a message, with a date and time you’d like to show the home.
  • The listing agent returns your call – but you’re out of the office. She leaves a message, stating that’s not a good time and gives you an alternative time and asks you to call back and confirm a time.
  • You call back and – yep, leave a message with a confirmation of the time she offered – and wait for a call back or an email with any showing instructions and confirmation of the appointment.
 
How would you like to eliminate that phone tag game and spend your time more productively? There is a solution – and it’s free for MFRMLS MLXchange subscribers.
 
ShowingTime is a service offered by MFRMLS that helps you manage and track showings on properties that you list, and request showing times on properties listed by other agents. The software consists of two separate modules that allow you to:
  • Make viewing instructions on properties easily available to all MLS Realtors.
  • Track agents who review the viewing instructions for easy follow-up.
  • Display a calendar of available viewing times to interested agents.
  • Allow interested agents to request an appointment online.
  • Generate confirmation emails immediately.
  • Request and track feedback on shown properties.
 
Getting Started with ShowingTime’s ShowingAssist
ShowingAssist allows you to accept showing requests and book showing appointments for your properties through the MLXchange system. You’ll get instant showing notifications, cut out the phone tag that eats up hours of your day, and make a more professional impression on buyers and agents alike. Here’s how to get started using ShowingAssist.
  1. Log on to MLXchange.
  2. In the “Resource” box, click on “SmartLinks”
  3.  Next click on “Configure ShowingAssist”.
  4. In the configuration screen, select the tab for Agent Setup. Tick off the box in the On/Off status box to enable ShowingAssist for all properties listed by the agent.
  5. In the email notifications box, set the default email address to which all showing and request notifications should be sent. You can enter more than one address.
  6. You can set individual preferences for each agent (or they can set them themselves), and specific instructions for each property listing in the agents and listings tabs.
  7. Click the Update button.
  8. Agents may enter addresses for SMS or cell phone notifications as well as email addresses for notifications.
By default, all listings of an individual agent are enabled if that agent is enabled. That means that the listing will show the “Schedule a Showing” button when the listing is viewed through the MLXchange interface – but that button will not show if you, for example, email the listing to a client.
 
What if your office isn’t using ShowingAssist, but you’d like to? Not a problem. Individual agents can enable ShowingAssist for all of their listings, or just select listings – though I suspect that once you’ve tried it out, you’ll want to use it for everything. To set up ShowingAssist for an individual listing:
 
  1. In the dropdown box for “Showing Instructions”, select “ShowingTime”. Note: By the end of the summer, the dropdown box will be no more. ShowingTime will replace “Showing Instructions” on MLXchange for all agents.
  2. When you enter a new listing, select Enable Showing Time for this Listing from the Links dropdown menu at the bottom of the Listing Summary page.
  3. In the configure ShowingAssist screen, choose the showing type (Appointment Required or Viewing Instructions Only).
  4. Type the Viewing Instructions into the text box. This is not required for appointment only listings. Click the Update button.
  5. In Step 3, you can set up a calendar of showing times by clicking on Edit Showing Times and following the online instructions.
  6. In Step 4, simply fill out the email addresses where you’d like notifications of showing requests sent. If you’ve set up your Agent preferences for ShowingTime, your default email addresses will already be listed, and you’ll only have to enter any additional email addresses to which you’d like notifications to go. Click the Update button.
 
That’s all there is to it. Your listing will now appear with a Schedule a Showing button so that any agent or broker using the MLS system can easily schedule a showing through you.
 
How to Schedule a Showing with ShowingTime
  1. Click on the Schedule a Showing button in the listing.
  2. A contact information box will open with your contact details already filled into the appropriate fields. Confirm your contact details, make any changes necessary, agree to the terms and conditions and click Next.
  3. You can then view and print the showing instructions for the property. An email will be sent to the listing agent letting them know that you viewed the viewing instructions.
  4. If an appointment is required to show the property, a calendar will appear along with any instructions from the listing office. Click on the time slot that you would like to show the property. In the “Confirm request time” box, you may add any notes or questions you have for the listing office. Click Yes to send the request.
  5. You’ll receive an acknowledgement of your request with all the details of the listing.
  6. When the listing agent reads your request, you’ll receive a read receipt notification so that you’ll know your request has been received.
  7. When the listing agent or office confirms your showing appointment, they can easily respond directly from ShowingTime and include all the information you need to find and show the property.
Agents who use ShowingTime estimate that it saves them as much as two hours a day in manual input time and phone tag. What could you do with two extra hours a day? Start using ShowingTime and find out!

Date: Thursday, August, 30th 2007 @ 07:50:05 PM
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This blog entry currently has 1 comments posted.

Jim Hirschhorn

We have added this to every one of our listings and we love it and so do the showing agents!

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