From 39 Hours to 4
How UrbanNest Realty Tripled Follow-Ups Without Hiring a Single Person
TL;DR — One lead-nurture bot + zero new salaries =
+18 % more deals, –35 % cost per closing, 72 % admin time saved.
1. The Pain No Listing Could Hide
UrbanNest is a five-agent brokerage in Austin, TX.
They live on inbound buyer forms, Zillow inquiries, and weekend open-house sheets.
250-310 new leads hit their CRM every month.
Only 38 % received a second touch after the first call.
Agents lost deals when busy weekends pushed Monday follow-ups to “later.”
Admin Reality (July audit)
Task | Time/Week | Who did it |
|---|---|---|
Manual CRM data entry | 6 h | Junior assistant |
Calendar reminders / SMS | 11 h | Same assistant |
Email follow-up sequences | 14 h | Two agents |
“Did we call?” spreadsheet | 8 h | Office manager |
Total: 39 hours of busywork every single week—almost a full-time salary
yet still 6 of 10 leads went cold.
2. Mapping the Bottleneck
Problems we flagged:
Human copy-paste → typos, missing phone numbers
No round-robin; top agents hogged hot leads
Reminder gaps when assistants were sick
Agents never saw updated notes because two tools didn’t sync
3. The Falqen Fix (4-Hour Build)
Stack selected
Layer | Tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
Trigger | Webhook (Zapier catch) | Real-time lead capture |
Enrich & de-dupe | Clearbit API | Auto-fill phone, LinkedIn |
CRM push | HubSpot API | Standardised pipeline |
Sequencer | Falqen lead-nurture bot | Multi-channel follow-up |
Calendar | Google Calendar API | Inserts agent events |
Notifications | Slack + SMS | At 4 key milestones |
Key automation rules
Lead enters → bot scores → assigns to next available agent
If unanswered after 15 min → SMS and email drip fire automatically
If agent books showing → bot adds Google Calendar event + driving link
Agent note via mobile → syncs back to HubSpot instantly
🕑 Total human-keyboard time/week now: 4 hours (manager just reviews dashboards).
4. The First 30 Days — Hard Numbers
KPI | July (before) | August (after) | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
Leads touched ≥ 3 × | 96 | 293 | ▲205 % |
Avg. response time | 3 h 11 m | 17 m | ▼91 % |
Deals closed | 11 | 13 | ▲18 % |
Admin hours | 156 / mo | 16 / mo | ▼90 % |
Payroll spent on busywork | $3 450 | $0 | –$3 450 |
ROI: Bot subscription $499/mo → payback in 4.3 days.
5. Agent Reactions (Unfiltered)
“It felt like hiring a super-assistant who drinks no coffee and never forgets.”
— Alex R., Senior Agent
“I only open my CRM now to see who showed up to the showing, not if they’ll come.”
— Mara S., Buyer Specialist
6. What Made the Difference?
Speed kills doubt – 80 % of commissions still go to the first responder.
Context is king – Bot enriches each record: bedrooms searched, income bracket, LinkedIn link, so calls start personal.
Agent ego hack – Slack pings with 🎉 Contact booked a showing turned adoption into a dopamine loop.
One source of truth – Calendar + CRM auto-sync killed the “who has the latest spreadsheet?” blame game.
7. Could This Be Your Story Next Month?
<250 leads/mo? Same workflow, smaller list → you’ll spend <$400 all-in.
Big brokerage? Duplicate the pipeline template per agent; Falqen scales to 100 email accounts.
No HubSpot? We plug into Pipedrive, Monday, even Google Sheets.
8. Swipe Our Playbook in Two Steps
Fill the 30-second audit form → we map one painful funnel segment.
Get a free mini-bot that handles it for 14 days. If metrics don’t move, keep the SOP.
Your team’s next “I can’t believe we ever did this manually” moment is literally one call away.
Your first automation is on us
If it doesn’t save you time and money, delete it. No hard feelings.
