Follow Up Boss Review
Table of Contents
Follow Up Boss Pricing
- Most popular plan costs $199/month for up to 5 users. Includes all available functions except for integrated calling, which is $79/user/month
- No long-term contract
- Free 14-day trial (no credit card required)
Follow Up Boss CRM Full Review
Follow Up Boss allows real estate agents to track and measure all aspects of their leads and deal activity. Laser-focused on lead generation, conversion and follow-up, the system is designed to push its users to be the fastest and most organized real estate agent around. Using Follow Up Boss's system, the company claims, results in "a 5 times greater lead conversion rate than your peers".
Follow Up Boss integrates with your existing contacts and dozens of email lead sources. Once FUB gains access to your email and contacts (which it requires for sign up), it will mine your emails and push anyone it thinks is a lead into your inbox. In my case upon setup, none of the emails it pulled were actual leads. Despite this initial inaccuracy, the system’s speed is notable—once leads started coming in from connected lead sources (IDX website, Trulia, Zillow, etc.), the system was very efficient.
Note that while Follow Up Boss integrates with apps that provide other key parts of a brokerage’s business, you’ll also need other software to create your website, IDX and other productivity apps. Follow Up Boss also requires that you use Google apps, as its integration with Gmail is necessary for some of Follow Up Boss's more powerful features.
Key Features
Below, we'll discuss the key features of Follow Up Boss and how they can benefit your business.
Lead & Contact Management
Follow Up Boss automatically organizes your leads, and sorts them by recency in order to encourage agents to contact their most recent leads first. Agents can only view leads that they've entered themselves, or leads that were assigned to them from an Admin.
In the screenshot below, the lead profile shows all information that an agent (or team leader) needs to know about a lead, including past communications, lead source, stage, tasks, appointments and more.
FUB consolidates all emails, texts and call notes into each contact’s dashboard and arranges them chronologically, allowing agents and team leaders to easily see, track and monitor all digital communication between the agent and the lead. It also shows the agent’s tasks and appointments for the contact.
Agents can also email and call from this screen and log call notes. Once a call is completed, a notes window appears encouraging agents to enter a call note.
Uniquely, the People screen helps find the top 10 or 20 people that the system thinks the agent should be in contact with. There's also a feature that helps agents find contacts they haven’t spoken to but should get back in touch with.
Inbox
The Inbox allows the agent to focus their attention on what’s important and eliminate other distractions. By showing only new communications from lead sources (e.g. Zillow, Trulia, website IDX feed) and allowing agents to text, email and call the lead from the same screen, the agent can focus solely on servicing the lead. Communication history is also stored for you to reference in the future.
Calendar
Like Inbox, Calendar is designed to help agents focus on events and tasks associated with specific leads. This screen shows past, current and future appointments and follow-up tasks in both a list and calendar view. Entering appointments is quick and easy. An example of its efficiency, FUB auto sends the contact a calendar invites when the appointment is set. Clicking on a contact’s name in an appointment or task brings up the People screen for that contact.
Follow Up Boss is also able to send you a daily "Hotsheet" containing the leads that it thinks you should follow up with, along with the day’s appointments and tasks.
Custom Leads Assignment
Assigning leads is straightforward and highly customizable. Team leaders and Admins can assign specific leads, and those from specific sources, to other agents and/or teams. Leads assigned to teams are then automatically distributed to team members on a round-robin basis.
Follow up Boss integrates with a long list of lead providers, including Mojo Dialer, Zillow, Trulia and other major real estate search sites and IDX websites. Agents can also import their own leads manually. Regardless of a lead’s origin, FUB tracks each lead, and allows for granular lead reporting for agents and Admins. Follow Up Boss also gives team leaders the ability to create "Action Plans" where they distribute leads from specific sources to selected agents.
Automation
In addition to being able to decide which lead goes where, the system can automatically send templated responses. For example, the software can automatically text all Zillow leads a "Hello" message, or email them a pre-set message one month after the initial contact. Customizable drip campaigns are also available. Similarly, automated Task reminders for agents can be set using either a canned template or customized ones.
Automation can be a double-edged sword, however. While it increases speed and efficiency, if the user doesn’t set it up properly, aspects of FUB may be a little too efficient and border on annoying. As is the case with other apps that want to dominate your attention, if left on default, FUB risks being a little too efficient and active. To protect against this, you should read the included user guides and take advantage of the free live set up to make the system work best for you.
Deal Tracking
A simple screen tracks deal stages and status, from contract through closing. Adding deals, and relevant information about them, such as the price, commission rate and closing date, is also easy. Robust deal reporting functions are available for agents, teams and admins to create and review. Similar lead tracking tools and reports are also available.
Reporting
Agents can find and produce reports that produce a variety of useful information. The stock reports provide agents, teams and team leaders reports on a range of lead-related data and communications. They also help facilitate performance comparison between agents and teams. Other smart lead data, such as how many given leads an agent did not service, is also available.
Integrations
Follow up Boss integrates with IDX websites, Zapier, Mailchimp, Gmail and Google Apps. Consistent with its solid but narrow functionality, Follow Up Boss integrates well with its universe of apps, which, if used together provide what a typical real estate brokerage needs to operate a successful online business. However, it would be nice if more integration options were available. While more are possible using Zapier, doing so adds extra layers of complexity that many real estate shops (especially smaller ones might not want).
Is Follow Up Boss Right for You?
Follow Up Boss is an excellent CRM for real estate professionals. By integrating with Gmail, Follow Up Boss helps agents organize and prioritize leads, and maximize your chances of closing your deal. At roughly $200/month, Follow Up Boss can easily pay for itself by increasing your deal volume. However, before committing to Follow Up Boss, you'll want to make sure that it integrates with any other tools that your business depends on.