With real estate agents, home buyers, and sellers all flooding your inbox, it's a wonder you get anything else done outside of checking emails! Transaction Coordinators spend so much time juggling messages, so it’s essential to stay organized. Inbox management takes a little bit of work to figure out, but will save you tons of time long-term. Read on to learn how to take control of your emails so you can stop wasting time in your inbox and better serve your clients.
Why Is Inbox Management Important for Transaction Coordinators?
You’re the link between real estate agents and all the people they work with to sell houses. That’s why your inbox sees a ton of traffic each day. Inbox management is a crucial part of keeping Transaction Coordinators organized.
Without an organization strategy, you may struggle to find email threads. Essential replies might slip through the cracks. And worst of all, you won’t just feel disorganized—you’ll look disorganized to your clients, which is a huge no!
It Saves Time and Boosts Your Productivity
Taking charge of your inbox will make it so much easier to sidestep distractions when new messages come in. You may feel the urge to stop what you’re doing and answer emails as soon as they arrive so you don’t forget about them later. But having a management system for your inbox relieves some of that pressure!
Exercising a strategic system means spending less time checking and responding to your emails (and waiting until you’re actually ready to deal with them!). You’ll experience greater productivity in the long run when you eliminate wasted time spent typing out email responses when you should be focusing on your task at hand . Plus, you’ll never have to deal with the loss of motivation and momentum that comes with taking an email break in the middle of a project.
It Can Reduce Your Software Expenses
Unhandled emails already take up space on your operating system. If you back up your messages on other software as well (as many savvy Transaction Coordinators do) you're slowing down the efficiency of your technology.
Rather than purchasing extra storage space, get into the routine of triaging your emails. Keep that spam and junk mail folder empty, delete any expired promotional newsletters floating around, and get rid of fluff like “thank you” and “sounds good” emails.
Realtors are notorious for needing things multiple times, and it’s common for Transaction Coordinators to have to provide confirmation of requested or completed tasks long after the fact. Hold onto important records long-term, but don’t be afraid to remove minor communication from your inbox. Do you really need to keep the back-and-forth emails deciding on a meeting time with a realtor you met up with three years ago?
Every deleted email frees up a little more space for critical communication you can’t afford to lose. It’s easy to see how proper inbox management can save you tons of money over time, right?
You Can Easily Access Communication History with Your Clients
With multiple houses being sold, dozens of contracts floating around (at various stages of completion), and agents relying on you to hold it all together, you need to be able to find files for a particular account at the drop of a pin.
You may have dozens or even hundreds of emails pertaining to a single transaction. Leveraging inbox management strategies will help you keep all necessary information together for quick reference.
Collaboration is so important as part of everyday life for Transaction Coordinators. With an organized inbox, collaboration is so much easier.
5 Inbox Management Tips to Take Control Of Your Email
If you’re ready to flip the switch on inbox management, you’re in the right place! Here are five sensational strategies to keep your inbox in check so your Transaction Coordinator business can run smoothly—and so that you can keep your clients happy.
Create Templates for Your Most Common Emails
Templates are a lifesaver for Transaction Coordinators. So much of the work you do is replicable for each client or account. That applies to communication, too!
Consider these repeated email topics that can be transformed into templates:
- Greeting new clients
- Escrow information
- Inspection notification
- List of utility and service companies
- Title details
- Closing information
- Appraisals
You may have considered templating the documents associated with each message, but templating the emails themselves will save you extra time and energy. You can easily tweak your templates to make them seem more personalized and professional with each new account.
Plus, when you have email templates set up for emails you send out all the time, nothing will slip through the cracks. You’ll stay on top of key details without any extra effort or digging around!
Block Out Your Schedule and Only Prioritize Inbox Management Once a Day
Avoid the temptation to sporadically look at your inbox throughout the day. Casual glances might seem harmless, but actually prevent you from being intentional when you set eyes on your messages. You could make yourself anxious or worried about topics you aren’t ready to address yet, or lose focus wondering if you should abandon your current task to take care of your inbox.
Carve out time in your daily schedule to check your emails and actually do something about them. By giving yourself a window to organize and address your inbox, you take back some of your sanity! Time blocking also helps you achieve work-life balance and trains your mind to only think about emails at certain points in the day.
Use Your Folders to the Fullest
It’s common for Transaction Coordinators to use their inbox as a built-in storage method when first starting out. But the longer you work as a Transaction Coordinator, the more unruly your inbox will become. You need more tools for effective inbox management.
Create folders to keep your inbox organized and optimal. Using the same subject categories you use to design your email templates, you can create email folders to house different types of emails! This helps you know where to look first when it comes time to address your inbox.
Set Up Inbox Management Filters or Rules
Try automating your inbox to sort your incoming messages into folders. For instance, messages regarding closing costs can go into a “closing” folder. Emergency favors can go into an “urgent” folder.
Automation saves you a ton of time and energy, so you can put it towards other more important tasks.
Only Reply When You Need To
You may be in the habit of responding to every message you receive, but for stronger inbox management, you shouldn’t. Sending short “gotcha” emails does nothing but flood your real estate agents’ inboxes with unsubstantial content. Plus, quick or constant replies and communication outside of business hours can all negatively impact your established client boundaries.
Obviously, all of your email conversations come full circle when your projects are complete. So skipping out on quick thank-you messages is not only acceptable—it’s the standard in real estate. The people you work with will know that you got all of their messages when you address them fully and send back worthwhile, meaty responses down the line.
Your inbox shouldn’t be the most challenging part of your Transaction Coordination business. Take control of your emails and get back all the time you used to waste sorting through your inbox. Spending just a few hours implementing these inbox management strategies will let your productivity skyrocket long-term!
