Executive Summary
Peak Realty is a real estate brokerage firm with an investment mindset. They help clients in all asset classes ranging from multi-family purchases and leasing to single-family home purchases and sales to rentals. Their team includes 15 employees and 25 independent contractor brokers operating in Chicago and its suburbs.
The Challenge
Prior to Zenatta, we had very fragmented systems, utilizing several different software products to power our business operations. The fragmentation caused lots of issues including data syncing issues, compatibility, and overall tech fatigue for our sales teams who needed to log into several systems in order to process a single deal.
Ari Weil – Director of Strategic Growth
Implementation
When we started with Peak Realty, one of the first pain points involved their website. It streamed data from other sites into the CRM, but the sync failed often. We revamped the integration so it worked properly, pulling in market availability, rent details, and other property data. With help from their web team, we connected the APIs directly to the CRM. Now their database updates in real time and provides reliable property details.
We also set up new lead capture methods using email parsers and API feeds from property websites. Whenever an inquiry comes in, the CRM routes it to the correct broker. Custom workflows and assignment rules ensure each lead goes to the right person based on property. We achieved this using a mix of Zoho CRM, Zoho Flow, API connections, and email parsers.
Another key automation advanced their deal process from “requested signature” to “signed.” When a lease is signed, they receive an email. That email is parsed, linked to the correct deal, and the signed lease attaches automatically. Even though the lease doesn’t go through Zoho Sign, this workflow still provides full visibility and automation.
Finally, we built a custom Creator app for their application management. This portal centralizes all rental applications and tracks them through the entire process. Both internal staff and contracted brokers can collaborate in the same system. By moving everything into Creator, they eliminated the need for apps like Monday.com, saving about $12K a year. With ~70 external users at $15 per month each, this switch significantly cut costs while improving efficiency.
Results
Director of Strategic Growth
Zenatta has helped us in many ways-
Launching a customized application screening portal with Zoho Creator. This portal allows us to communicate with our sister company (property management) about applications we receive, and the portal is fully integrated with out CRM, allowing our brokers to visualize all/any of their applications and where they are in their pipeline, and when applications are fully approved and sign they create deals automatically in CRM for our brokers to submit for payments. This has significantly reduced tech fatigue for our sales agents.
Creating a sales deal blueprint in CRM. The blueprint has tremendously streamlined the process to create and close sales deals in the CRM. Our sales deals follow a long timeline including many steps, involved people, attachments, and data points. The blueprints allow brokers to move their deals along and only need to input the minimally appropriate information at each step along the way. Making it much easier and more fun to input deals and move them along.
Countless automations. At this point we’ve lost count of the exact number, but Zenatta has helped us input many automations that significantly reduce mundane administrative tasks. We manage our property inventory in the accounts module, and these automations make all sorts of changes for us based on various criteria including the availability status of a unit, it being listed on the MLS, to communicating with our team members important and timely emails when statuses change, new units become available, and when a broker becomes assigned a listing. This is just the tip of the iceberg!
The team is extremely competent on Zoho’s products to a level that they seem to know how to take those products to a level of use beyond even that which Zoho had intended.
It is such a large ecosystem of applications and products, and Zenatta has really been our guide on which make the most sense for our business.
Ari Weil – Director of Strategic Growth