Having a real-estate agency send employees to accompany clients (prospective buyers) to every single property they simply want to look at (until, after seeing enough, they decide they want to think about it…) is a managerial headache that “doesn’t pay for itself.” At least that’s how some agents in faraway Tennessee, USA, saw it.
They installed an “explanation machine,” a kind of Segway with an iPad, in each building to guide prospective students and mediate answers to their questions and queries: these are provided from the central offices via Skype or similar programs.
Customers are happy with this mechanical mediation: they can conduct market research at times that suit them. And Tennessee brokers are also pleased: the innovative sales consultants “closed” 25 sales within 1.5 months.
When homes become part of the Internet of Things (i.e., quite soon) they may advertise and sell themselves. Even greater savings for the real-estate business…
(Would it be even better if only machines lived in the houses?)