Customer story
Houm
By coordinating its buyer and renter journey on WhatsApp, the real estate marketplace attracted 64% more qualified leads and cut its response time.
Sector
Real estate technology
Channels
Headline
64% more qualified leads
The challenge
Leads waited days, and conversations slipped through the cracks.
Houm is a real estate technology company offering a marketplace for investors, buyers, renters, and sellers in Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. Its freelance agents, called “Houmers”, facilitate the relationship between property owners and prospective buyers or renters. Houm now has over $850 million USD in real estate under management, grows double-digit every month, and has more than 600 people on its team.
Houm's acquisition, sales, and customer support teams were looking for better ways to engage prospective leads. Given the volume of incoming leads, it could take up to two full days for buyers or renters to get a response from Houmers, leading to missed opportunities and lost sales.
- No-shows. Prospective leads would frequently miss appointment reminders sent through SMS and email, leading to no-shows — and agents would then spend valuable time trying to reschedule.
- Fragmented WhatsApp numbers.Houmers were each using a different WhatsApp number, limiting Houm's ability to track conversations or provide a unified experience. Messages would get lost with no backup, making it hard to follow up with leads or process lease documentation.
- Few NPS survey completions. Low response rates for NPS surveys made it challenging to collect the feedback needed to improve sales processes.
The solution
One WhatsApp number, automated across the whole journey.
Houm reduced drop-offs and increased the number of qualified leads in its pipeline by eliminating manual tasks and encouraging leads to take immediate action throughout the sales process. The team followed up with leads using template messages and routed them to available agents, helping reduce response time.
- Automated reminders that cut no-shows. Houm sent appointment reminders through channels leads were more likely to check, and missed appointments could be reactivated with an automated message.
- Self-service on WhatsApp. Leads could schedule and manage appointments directly on WhatsApp without talking to an agent, and could send application documents and submit NPS surveys more conveniently.
- Trust through local numbers. Houm purchased local numbers for Chile, Mexico, and Colombia from Bird and integrated them into a single central number that customers can call and message — the same for regular phone calls and WhatsApp, building trust and consistency with potential buyers or renters.
The results
64% more qualified leads, faster.
Houm is now able to qualify, assign, schedule appointments, and respond to leads more efficiently. As a result, the team increased the number of qualified leads by 64%, all while reducing its response time. In just a week of implementing Bird's solutions, Houm's NPS survey completions surpassed the total number of completions for the last three months — giving the team ample feedback to make informed decisions and remove bottlenecks from the buyer and renter journey.
64%
More qualified leads with WhatsApp, after automating follow-up across the funnel.
3
Markets served — Chile, Mexico, and Colombia — through one central number.
Faster
Response time, with leads routed to available agents instead of waiting days.
“We are now able to convert customers faster and reduce drop-offs. Potential leads are more likely to buy or rent a property.”
Marcela Molina, Product Owner Demand Acquisition, Houm
What's next
Building an end-to-end journey.
Houm is looking to continue using Bird to build more complex flows and create an end-to-end experience that keeps leads engaged throughout the entire buying and renting process.
Carry-forward reference from bird.com. Metrics and named quotes reported by Houm.
Coordinate your journey on WhatsApp.
Automate follow-up, route leads to agents, and unify conversations behind one number. A test API key is yours immediately.