Dashboard - Enquiries widget (and portal leads)

Alto receives leads (portal leads) from prospective purchasers and applicants who enquire via the leading web portals which publish their statistics (i.e. Zoopla, Rightmove, OnTheMarket), or your website if it's an Alto website or hosted by TechnicWeb.

Real-time leads (i.e. from Zoopla, Rightmove's Enhanced Lead feature and OnTheMarket) ensure that you can respond to important enquiries quickly. They also let you work with the leads within Alto from the moment they're sent, so you don't need to double key information from your emails into Alto.

Enabling leads

Before you can view any leads, leads need to be enabled on your Alto account. You only need to do this once per branch.

1. Login to Alto
2. Click Tools (the cog) on the main navigation bar
3. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
4. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
5. Click Branches
6. Click Edit next to the relevant branch
7. Search for Leads Enabled (on a PC use Ctrl + F and type leads, on a Mac Cmd + F) and tick the Leads Enabled tickbox
8. Scroll down and click Save
   
   

Viewing leads

Once leads are enabled, you can view and work with them from a few places in Alto: a summary in the Enquiries widget on the Dashboard, a breakdown in the Applicants report, and the full detail in the Enquiries section itself.

The Enquiries widget

The Enquiries widget on the Dashboard gives you an at-a-glance summary of your leads. It summarises the number of leads received from portals, and valuation and viewing requests from your website.

Click any of the icons to open Enquiries on the Home screen side menu and view the enquiries in more detail (as covered in Portal Leads below).  

Applicants report

Using Alto's Analytics, the Enquiries tab on the Applicants dashboard lets you monitor portal leads from applicants registered within a chosen date range. This is useful for spotting which properties and lead sources are generating the most interest. You're able to see:

• Top 10 properties with the most enquiries
• Enquiries by lead source
• Number of enquiries per property
• Applicant info for each enquiry

Rightmove enhanced lettings leads

Where you receive lettings leads from Rightmove via the Enhanced Lead feature, Alto captures the full enhanced lead information on the lead and stores it on the contact record. This gives you at-a-glance detail about the applicant and their viewing request, so you can weigh up whether to progress it without needing to qualify the lead from scratch.

Portal Leads

The Portal Leads tab is where you review incoming leads and bring them into Alto as contacts. If you clicked any of the icons within the Enquiries widget, you'll land here. Each lead shows a logo indicating which portal it came from, and a colour-coded indicator of whether the lead is likely to be a duplicate, a possible duplicate, or new.

You can filter by Branch (from the top), filter and/or sort by Intent to separate sales and lettings data (using the Buy, Let, Rent, Sell tickboxes), or sort by Date, Source, Name, Address, Postcode, Phone and Email (by clicking on the relevant column).

To inspect an individual lead, click the magnifying glass.

Duplicate leads

Before you import a lead, Alto tells you whether it might already exist in your contacts, so you don't create a duplicate record. The Duplicate column shows this using colour-coded circles:

• Red indicates a duplicate lead. This lead will have matched on a number of items (phone number, email address, name etc). These can either be merged with the existing applicant, or dismissed to create a new contact
• Orange indicates a possible duplicate, matching on 1 or 2 items (phone number, email address, name etc). These can either be merged with the existing applicant, or dismissed to create a new contact
• Green indicates a new contact. Click the tickbox at the start of the row and click Accept

Accepting or rejecting applicants 

Once you've reviewed the leads, you can bring them into Alto as contacts, either one at a time or in bulk.

• To import an applicant individually, click the tickbox at the start of the row and click Accept
• To accept in bulk, click the top tickbox above the rows to select all (or tick the applicants you wish to accept) and click Accept
• To reject applicants, click the tickbox at the start of the row and click Reject

With each of these, make sure you're selecting the correct Negotiator to assign the applicants to.

Following up the imported leads

After importing, you'll want to follow up your new leads. Where they end up depends on whether they were imported as new contacts or merged into existing ones.

• Leads imported as new contacts have a new contact record created and are grouped together for you. To find them:
  1. Click Contacts on the main navigation bar
  2. Click Groups in the top left
  3. In Default Groups, click Converted From Leads
     
     You can work through this group to follow up any new leads. Saving a change to a record in this group removes it from the group, as it's assumed you've followed the lead up.
      
• Leads merged into an existing record don't go into the Converted From Leads group. Make a note of these as you merge them, and use that note to follow them up in the existing contact record

Setting an automated email response to portal leads

You can have Alto send an automatic email reply to any portal lead that comes into the Enquiries section, so applicants get an immediate acknowledgement. To enable it:

1. Click Tools (the cog) on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Branches
5. Click Edit next to the relevant branch
6. Tick Portal Lead Reply by Email 
7. Scroll down and click Save

To change the content of the email that's sent:

1. Click Tools (the cog) on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Email Templates
5. Click Page Down until you see the PortalLeadReply template
6. Click Edit and amend the Content as required
7. Click Save

Market Appraisal Enquiries

When a customer requests a market appraisal from your website, the request appears in Alto on the Market Appraisal Enquiries tab, ready for you to book in.

You can filter by Branch (from the top), or sort by appraisal Type, Address, Name, Phone or Email (by clicking on the relevant column).

Booking Market Appraisals

Booking a market appraisal turns an enquiry into a diarised appointment for a negotiator. On the Market Appraisal Enquiries tab:

1. Using the dropdown menu, click the relevant Negotiator who will be attending the appointment
2. Click on the appropriate time Slot
3. Details of the customer and the property display on the Add a Market Appraisal or Property form
   1. Alternatively, you can add a new vendor, and property
4. Click Amend if you need to amend the time of the Market Appraisal
   1. Alternatively, select one of the time slots from the left hand side
5. Click Next 
6. On completion, click Finish

Viewing Enquiries

When you've enabled the PropertyFile Viewings widget on your website, any viewing requests appear on the Viewing Enquiries tab for you to accept, book or decline.

You can filter by Branch (from the top), or sort by Date, Market, Name, Email, Phone or Duplicate (by clicking on the relevant column).

Duplicates

As with portal leads, Alto flags whether each viewing request comes from a known or new contact so you can handle it correctly. There are 4 possible statuses, shown on the right hand side of the Viewing Enquiries section:

• Known Contact (icon) is when an applicant has logged into their PropertyFile account at the point of requesting the viewing:
  1. Click one of the times they've requested
  2. In the Viewing window, click Save Viewing
• New Contact (green circle) is when an applicant has clicked Continue as guest when requesting the viewing and doesn't have a PropertyFile account, a contact record within Alto, and isn't a possible duplicate:
  1. Click one of the times they've requested
  2. Alto asks if you're happy to accept the contact. Click Yes to proceed (you can invite the applicant to PropertyFile from here, if required)
  3. In the Viewing window, click Save Viewing
• Possible Duplicate (yellow circle) is when an applicant might already have a PropertyFile account or a contact record within Alto:
  1. Click the magnifying glass
  2. Check what the applicant has Matched On
  3. If you're happy, click Merge (you can also click Preview to open the contact record on the right hand side, then Open Contact to open the full contact record)
• Likely Duplicate (red circle) is when an applicant has matched on more than one item:
  1. Click the magnifying glass
  2. Check what the applicant has Matched On
  3. If you're happy, click Merge (you can also click Preview to open the contact record on the right hand side, then Open Contact to open the full contact record)

Actions

The Actions dropdown menu on the far right lets you decline a viewing request:

• Decline will decline the viewing
• Email & Decline will open an email you can edit. Click Send to send the email and decline the viewing request

• Related Help Centre articles that you may find useful.

  Activating your website widgets

  PropertyFile market appraisals

  PropertyFile Applicant Portal

  Automated Viewing Feedback