How One Brokerage Uses Ai Voice, Listening Tools To Help Agents Transform Client Calls

When it comes to implementing AI into business workflows, many agents and brokers typically consider things like backend office work, lead, CRM and email management, listing description drafting and marketing collateral creation. But Gary Ashton and Debra Beagle, the broker-owners of REMAX Advantage in Nashville, have found ways to incorporate AI tools into their voice calls. But these aren’t your stereotypical “robo calls.”

Two tools Ashton and Beagle have added to their AI tech stack are Remi from Speculo and Shilo. Speculo’s Remi provides their agents with cold calling and lead generation assistance, while Shilo provides them with call coaching specifically geared toward the agent’s personality. 

With Speculo, Ashton and Beagle’s agents are able to have Remi engage with lead calls that come in, answering questions about the specifications of a certain property or about what services the consumer is looking for. 

“We have licensed inside sales agents that manage all our inbound inquiries, but we use Remi as our safety net if we happen to miss a call,” Ashton said. “We also use Remi as a way to ‘revive’ our database to reach out and initiate contact when that person starts to engage again. The fact that Remi can answer questions about a home, in terms of beds, baths and square footage really helps us focus on the clients that want answers quickly with the bonus of having a direct connection to a live Realtor.”

Fewer, but more valuable conversations

Riley VanderKaay, the co-founder and CEO of Speculo, said this is exactly how he hoped Remi would help agents and brokers. 

“Now, instead you are calling 200 people instead of 2,000 and having more valuable conversations,” VanderKaay said. “We just want to give the real estate agent the power to do the thing they really want to do, which is consult people through the most important transaction of their life. Our value proposition to agents is that we are going to enable them to have better, more relevant conversations and do the things that they actually got their license to do, which is to help people through this experience.” 

VanderKaay said there are specific topics or questions that will trigger Remi to live transfer the call to the human real estate agent or find a time on the agent’s calendar to schedule a follow up call with the human agent. 

“If the consumer is indicating there is an urgency to buying or selling or they start asking questions Remi cannot answer as an unlicensed entity, then that signals to the AI that the consumer needs to speak with a human real estate agent.” VanderKaay said. 

Coaching calls using AI

This, Ashton and Beagle said, allows their agents to have more targeted conversations with consumers, enabling them to provide them with the value only a human real estate professional can. However, the AI applications in calls don’t end there for the team at REMAX Advantage. In order to empower their agents to perform better and reach more desirable outcomes on those calls, Ashton and Beagle have turned to Shilo. 

Billed as a conversational intelligence platform, Shilo listens to and grades calls providing agents with feedback about what they did well as well as areas they could improve. Agents can then “redo”the call via AI role play and work toward a more desirable outcome. 

“As broker-owners, one of the great things is that agents can login 24/7 for online coaching and utilize it when it works for them,” Beagle said. “New agents on our team are required to do two role play calls through Shilo each week at minimum, and we have seen an increase in agent performance from that.”

In addition to being able to redo and role play their own calls as well as calls experienced by other agents in the brokerage willing to share their call logs, agents are now also able to receive actionable feedback and coaching geared toward their specific personality type through Shilo’s Signals product.

Signals analyzes agent calls to surface each agent’s core motivators, fears, conflict style and social orientation. The product then generates individualized coaching recommendations based on how an agent actually communicates. 

“After about 10 calls we create a personality profile for each sales person, and it is crazy how accurate they are,” Justin Benson, the CEO and co-founder of Shilo, said. “But then it [can] provide you with recommendations on how to improve your calls based on your specific personality type.”

Benson said this means, for example, that an agent who exhibits conflict avoidant traits will not be given recommendations that feel unnatural for them to incorporate into his business. 

“Shilo working with agents to identify the best ways for them to respond to things based on their personality type is going to be so helpful for our agents,” Beagle said. 

Brokers can monitor

Shilo also allows brokers to monitor agents’ call logs and call performance to help them identify agents who may need more assistance as well as gain insights into what local consumers are currently concerned about, a feature Ashton and Beagle said they feel makes them more effective leaders for their agents. 

“We really like to review calls and then use that to improve conversational skills with our agents and make sure that we are delivering strong and consistent messaging to all of our clients,” Ashton said.  

Beagle added that it also enables them to see what strategies top performing agents are using to engage with consumers, allowing other agents in the company to learn from their experiences and successes. 

While Shilo is focused on call coaching, Ashton and Beagle said it also helps with some of the backend office tasks most people currently associate with effective ways to incorporate AI, including note taking and scheduling. 

“I also really like the note-taking and task capture features because it provides us with the summary of each call we’re on and then gives us action items and to-do lists, enabling us to leverage our time better and work smarter,” Beagle said. 

Looking ahead, Beagle and Ashton said they are excited to explore more ways these and other tools can help their agents level up their businesses, as the real estate industry embraces AI.