QR scans result in leads sharing info with Workflow Builder, a higher rate than ever.
2x
increase in responses with automated intros from Workflow Builder.
5 min.
to set up the team’s first automation with RingEX Workflow Builder.
The workflow automations we’ve been easily able to add into our marketing processes with RingEX’s Workflow Builder have increased our ability to generate leads, helped our agents have more personalized communications with those leads, and boosted our sales.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
Northwest Florida’s top-producing real estate company
For luxury real estate throughout Northwest Florida’s Emerald Coast, Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty consistently tops both local and national success lists year after year.
In 2024, nearly a quarter of the firm’s 100+ full-time agents ranked among the nation’s top 200 sales associates, according to RealTrends. The firm regularly ranks among the top five real estate companies in the US for per-agent sales. Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty has also led the Emerald Coast’s real estate community in total sales volume for seven years in a row.
Company growth spurred the need for a better phone system
When Will Maberry joined the company 20 years ago to run marketing, the firm had a single office with a basic business phone system. However, after becoming a Sotheby’s affiliate and changing their name to Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty, the organization began to grow rapidly.
As Maberry explains, “Eventually we had four offices all along Florida’s Emerald Coast. Each location had its own monstrous phone infrastructure with lots of outdated hardware and not a lot of functionality.”
With plans for even more growth and geographical expansion, Maberry, in his new role as Vice President of Operations, began looking for a more centralized and scalable communications solution.
In real estate, there’s a platform for everything. We had different systems for phone, chat, and video. Because RingEX consolidated that all into one environment, our agents could spend less time app hopping and more time on dollar-producing activities.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
RingEX delivers consolidation and other operational benefits
A key communication capability Scenic Sotheby’s was able to improve with RingEX, Maberry explains, was video conferencing. “Before RingEX, our whole company shared just a couple of free licenses to another video app. If an agent had a video call with a client, they could be cut off at 30 or 40 minutes. But with RingEX, everyone has their own account and can hold these video calls anytime, for as long as necessary.”
Maberry also points out that RingEX’s video conferencing saves the team enormous time by letting colleagues in different locations meet face-to-face without having to spend half of their day traveling between offices, as he often did.
My travel time between home and office, plus trips to other locations, might be four hours a day. Now that I can have those inter-office meetings with RingEX video, I save that time and still get that all important face-time with my teams.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
Finally, Maberry notes, having RingEX has helped keep his staff close and collaborating seamlessly even though some of its members are overseas. “We have a few virtual assistants in the Philippines, and because they’re able to easily communicate with our staff here in Florida via video calls and messages, they’ve very much become full-fledged members of our team.”
RingEX’s Workflow Builder unleashes even more benefits
Scenic Sotheby’s sales, marketing, and operational teams were able to realize even more significant productivity gains, Maberry explains, when he discovered the Workflow Builder automation design tool included in his RingEX account.
“We had a process using QR codes on our agents’ For Sales signs, where a lead would scan the code and get taken straight to the online listing on our website,” he says. As Maberry explains, that communication workflow had several drawbacks. First of all, it didn’t allow the company to collect any detail or contact information on the lead. But an even bigger problem, he notes, had to do with the client experience.
“By just getting dropped on the website, our clients had a colder, less personalized experience. It was very mechanical and didn’t give our agents a chance to establish any relationship with the prospective buyer.”
So Maberry began looking for a better process to connect these leads with the right sales agent at the right moment, before losing them to an impersonal website listing. To his surprise, Maberry realized he already had the solution. “In my research, I stumbled onto the fact that we have this no-code workflow automation tool already in RingEX.”
In five minutes, I was able to add an automated step to our QR process using the Workflow Builder. Now a lead scans a For Sale sign and gets asked for permission to text the info. When they grant permission, now we’ve got their contact info. Today, 33% of those scans convert to warm leads—far higher than ever.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
In fact, Maberry notes, after implementing this Workflow Builder process that auto-sends a text message after a lead scans a QR code, those leads are now responding at a 100% greater rate than they were when they were simply taken to the website and asked to leave their email address.
Building more lead-generating automated workflows
Maberry points out that the new automated contact in the company’s QR scan process also improves the client experience in other ways.
“Thanks to the Workflow Builder, our leads now receive faster responses to questions than they did when our agents had to handle those contacts manually. It might have taken a busy agent a full day to respond with an email answering a question about a property. But now that the Workflow Builder can auto-answer a lot of common questions, our leads can literally get those responses immediately.”
The updated QR scan process proved so successful for his sales agents’ For Sale signs that Maberry began looking for other ways to insert automated workflows into other marketing efforts to increase lead generation.
“I realized we could use the RingEX Workflow Builder to automate a similar process with our direct mail campaigns,” he says. “Now we’re segmenting those mailers using different numbers, so if an agent receives a response from a certain number, they know if it’s coming from a mailer, nearby or from out of town. That helps our agents adapt their scripts and make each contact more personalized.”
I’ve observed a 2x increased likelihood that a prospective buyer will answer these texts over the versus process, either to thank the agent for the information or to ask questions and start a conversation.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
Maberry also notes that enhancing the QR scan process with RingEX’s Workflow Builder has even helped agents show more value to their clients.
“We had a seller ask his agent to remove the For Sale sign from his home, because he worried the sign wasn’t generating enough interest. I was able to easily go into our system, grab all the phone numbers we’ve gathered from people scanning the sign, and send that to the homeowner. That was very impactful, for the seller to see all those numbers and realize, ‘Wow, I guess a lot of people are actually interested in my home.’”
And even though the initial contact prospects receive via their Workflow Builder process is automated, Maberry points out that many leads view this automated response as excellent customer service. “A lot of leads tell our agents, ‘You’re the first person who’s followed up with me and checked that I had all the information I needed. Thank you.’”
Looking to the future with RingCentral
Maberry has been so impressed with RingEX’s capabilities that he now plans to investigate the solution for more ways to improve his teams’ productivity and efficiency. His first plan is to implement the AI Assistant for RingEX, and one key benefit Maberry foresees is that his team won’t need to worry about key details every falling through the cracks on any sales call.
“I can envision a use case for the AI Assistant where an agent is at a showing and has to step away to take a call from another client but doesn’t have a notebook or something to capture everything. The AI Assistant will listen to the call, automatically generate a summary, highlights, and even promised action items. Then the agent can easily text that info to the client to confirm. What a great device that will be for both agent productivity and client service.”
Finally, Maberry explains, he sees a lot of possibilities with RingCentral’s AI Receptionist, which he also plans to implement soon. “I can see the AI Receptionist improving workflow efficiencies for our staff while at the same time giving our customers a more personalized, higher-touch experience.”
I can see a big potential for efficiency gains in rolling out the AI Receptionist, where a friendly, knowledgeable voice could replace our standard IVR, guide callers to the answers they need, and really take some of the strain of high call volume off our staff. That’s just one of many ways I see our company growing with RingCentral.
Will Maberry
Vice President of Operations
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