How do I change a lead status?

This article covers:

• Lead nurturing process
• Automatic Workflow
• Lead Status
• Where to change it from?

Lead Nurturing

It's the process in which you create a relationship with the person who is interested in the property you have for sale or rent, whether they are ready for it or not.
PF Expert enables you to follow-up with your leads by updating their statuses during
the funnel of your sales pipeline.

Keeping your company aware of your progress with your clients is vital to generate the needed turnover and to obtain the necessary resources when needed. It allows you to receive support from your peers when they have a property that could potentially match your client's tastes.
See our related article about the lead matching system.

Automatic Workflow

A CRM system is as good as the information you put in it.
If your database of properties, leads or owners is not tidy, you won't be able to get the full benefits of the system.

For this reason, PF Expert automates the small tasks a user would have to do during the lifecycle of a lead by updating its status automatically (and also the property).
For example, when you create a visit synced with your calendar, it sets automatically the lead as "Visit in progress" or when you create a transaction with a lead, its status is changed to "Contract Sent".

The reason behind this is:

1. To make your life easier.
2. To maintain a coherent database of your leads (provided you are using the CRM correctly).

Indeed, it would not be optimal to have a transaction registered with a lead that is left with the status "New". 

• What is then the value of your database?
• How can you farm your leads correctly to find who is interested in a property if most of them are not up-to-date and have already purchased?

Workflow:

In the diagram below you can see that during the lead nurturing process (from left to right), the lead's status is changed automatically by the system.

• When you shortlist a property for a lead, the status is set to "Prospect".

Similarly, the property the lead has inquired onto is also updated from available to reserved to sold or rented.

 

Lead Status

1. New: When the lead has just been created by you. 
2. Prospect: When the lead has just been created by the system and attributed to  "Propertyfinder Lead Push". Also, when you "Shortlist" a property for a lead, it means you know enough about the taste of this client and therefore to be considered as a potential client.
3. Visit in Progress: You have booked a meeting with this lead to show the property. If you create a calendar invitation, the status will be updated automatically by the system. See our related article here.
4. Qualified: You know that the lead is genuinely serious and has the financial ability to complete business with you.
5. Contract Sent: A contract has been sent to this lead or you initiate a transaction with this lead. It doesn't mean the property has been sold/rented yet, but that you are now starting to enter into the transaction cycle. See our related article here.
6. Contract Signed: The lead has returned the contract that was sent with their signature on it or the transaction with this client has been set as "WON". 
7. Not Ready: This lead will need to be scheduled to a later date when the lead is ready to complete a deal.
8. Not Interested: The lead dropped out, found something else or is no longer interested.
9. Called No Reply: You've tried multiple times to reach this lead and he is not returning your calls. Make sure to document your actions in the notes.

Where to change it from?

There are two ways to change a lead status.

Lead Page:

From the lead page, at the top-right, click on the status progress bar where you will see a drop-down menu, from which you can change the status of this lead associated with a percentage of completion of this nurturing cycle.

Lead List:

From the lead list, select the lead(s) for which you want to change the status and select the option "Change Status" from the bulk action button as shown below.