Property ManagementHotsend Your Documents
With the passing of each day, more and more consumers come to prefer email
communications versus slow mail, hard to read faxes and expensive overnight
delivery services.
Because of this trend, it is increasingly important that business
professionals become more able to serve these connected consumers.
While the majority of agents do use email on a regular basis, most still
consider email to be not much more than simple text.
What"s lacking from the average agent"s customer service arsenal is the
ability to think "paperless" or at least about less paper.
On any given day, there are still thousands of agents printing MLS searches
onto paper, only to feed them into fax machines (before throwing them
away). This is done so that they can pay long distance phone charges to
convert the paper into bits and bytes, if only for a moment, and then back
onto printed paper from the recipient"s machine; destroying the quality of
all photographs and graphics in the process.
The same is true of contracts, highlight sheets and forms.
In several of my seminars, I demonstrate Adobe"s Acrobat software in order to render the above scenario even more obviously obsolete than it already is. However, while powerful, at $240 (street price) Acrobat isn"t cheap.
On the other hand, there is an Internet solution (of course) that"s nearly
as good and absolutely free (again, of course) due to built-in advertisements.
The site to visit is: http://www.hotsend.com
The purpose of your visit is to download their free software.
The reason you"ll want to download their software is simple. Once
installed, you will then be able to:
Print anything you like to a computer file
Which, can then be emailed to anyone else
So that they can view it, just as you created it
Complete with color, photographs and graphics
Without having to use the same software that you do
In a nutshell, all of this techno-magic is accomplished in two simple steps.
The first step is that you just print whatever you want to send (contracts,
highlight sheets, MLS searches, etc.) not to your actual printer, but to
the "Hotsend-Email-Attacher" which, for lack of a better word, pretends to
be a real printer. This step simply creates the file that you will send.
The second step is that you email the file to your customer or client. When
the recipient opens their email, they can simply double-click the
attachment, and they"ll see the document - just as you created it. They
can even use their own printer if they need a copy on paper.
There is just one other question that needs explaining: How can your
customers and clients read the files you send?
Simple: When you "print" to the "Hotsend-Email-Attacher" you are given the
option of packaging the "Hotsend Viewer" software right into the document
you"re sending. They get your document and the appropriate "viewer" at the
same time!
It"s worth noting that the "viewer" does add considerable size to the file
you send, but you only need to send it to them once.
So, the FIRST time you send a client or customer any document, go ahead and
send them the "viewer" too. After that, send future "printouts" without
the viewer. These subsequent files will be much smaller, and thus faster
to send.
Once you start using this software to email documents, then you"ll probably
want to explore a great number of other ways to take advantage of it.
Consider distributing highlight sheets and forms electronically on floppy
disks or CD"s, for example. Or, simply let customers download them
directly from your web site.
I would like to make it clear that HotSend is NOT as sophisticated,
flexible or universally supported as Adobe Acrobat; a program I find
indispensable and use daily.
Additionally, Acrobat will create files that are much smaller (meaning
faster transmissions and downloading) than will HotSend; and obviously
doesn"t bundle advertisements within the program, either.
If you"ve got Adobe Acrobat, stick with it. It IS the standard-bearer of
electronic documents. But, if you don"t, then consider HotSend your first
(not last) step into the realm of paperless customer service.
Also See:
Effective E-Mail Is More Than Netiquette
How Virtual Agents Use E-mail
Why AOL EMail Stinks for REALTORS®
Eudora Pro - For Free?