Hello, this is Matsubara, CRM Evangelist.

"More than half of the deals we closed were with customers who had visited us more than six months prior."

These are the numbers that came out when we first properly analyzed our data. At that moment, I realized how many opportunities I had been throwing away over the years.

*This article is a fictional story based on industry realities and implementation patterns of multiple companies.

Before implementation—it was a company where "eventually customers" were disappearing.

The real estate brokerage company I head is a medium-sized company with 5 employees and approximately 40 deals closed per year. We have been operating locally for 15 years, but the number of deals closed has plateaued for the past three years.

I knew the problem: follow-up customers.

Among the customers who visit our office, there are a certain number who say, "I'm not looking right now, but I'll consider it if a good property comes along." These customers shouldn't be ignored just because they don't sign a contract today. Rather, the key is whether they'll think, "I should contact that agent from back then," six months or a year from now.

But in reality, the customer list managed in Excel just keeps growing, and I don't know "who I should contact today." Each person in charge manages things in their own way, so I can't see the whole picture. New recruits are left to fend for themselves without learning the follow-up techniques of their seniors.

Every time I heard after a customer who had visited our store had decided to go with another company, I felt frustrated, thinking, "That person was still considering their options."

My encounter with GIS maps—"I felt like something would change if I saw my desired area on a map."

I first learned about EMOROCO CRM Lite when a construction company owner I do business with told me they were using it. At first, I thought it had nothing to do with real estate.

The moment I saw the demo and saw the GIS mapping function, I knew it was the one.

The system displays the customer's desired area on a map, changing the pin color according to their emotional temperature (red = hot, orange = warm, blue = cool, light blue = cold). When the map is opened, it's immediately clear at a glance who to contact that day.

In real estate brokerage, understanding "which area a client wants" is crucial to understanding the customer. Desired conditions such as "within the school district of XX Elementary School" or "within 10 minutes of the station and with parking" reflect "what kind of lifestyle the client wants." When these conditions are laid out on a map, it becomes instantly clear "who to contact when a new property becomes available in this area"—this felt like something that used to be done manually was now incorporated into the design.

The shock of the first day of implementation—setting the emotional temperature of 172 customers.

The very first thing I did after signing the contract was to set emotional temperature levels for all 172 of my customers from the past two years. That took half a day.

I was speechless when I saw the results.

• Red (hot): 11 people (6%)
• Orange (Warm): 38 people (22%)
• Blue (Cool): 79 people (46%)
• Light blue (cold): 44 people (26%)

The combined percentage of "cool" and "cold" accounts for 72%. This was the moment when the reality that "more than 7% of customers are being ignored" was quantified.

What was particularly shocking was that there were over 40 customers in Cool who had visited 3 to 6 months ago but were still supposedly considering a purchase. These were people I had remembered in my mind as potential customers, but in reality, they hadn't received any contact from anyone.

When I asked the veteran employee in charge, he replied, "Those people are the type to wait patiently." While it's true that they wait patiently, that doesn't mean "they won't contact us." The thought that they might have gone to another company that contacted them at the right time sent chills down my spine.

The first three months—the map begins to change.

The way the GIS map looked changed the morning after I set the emotional temperature.

Customers are represented by pins in their desired areas, and the color of each pin indicates their level of interest. Areas with a high concentration of blue pins are areas where "customers who are behind in their follow-up are concentrated." When new property information becomes available, the action of "contacting the people with blue pins in this area today" naturally arises.

The configured workflows (the first three):

Workflow ①: Regular follow-up with "potential customers"

Workflow ②: Notification of matching new properties with desired conditions

Workflow ③: Follow-up within 48 hours after the customer visit

The third workflow was particularly effective. Contacting the customer within 48 hours of their visit creates the impression that "that agent is really taking action," especially when they are comparing properties from other companies.

Changes after 3 months of implementation: Follow-up rate: 27% → 78% (contact rate with blue and light blue pins) Follow-up rate within 48 hours of visit: 34% → 91%

Six months later—"Even rookies can perform at the same level as veterans."

It took six months for a young staff member, in their second year with the company, to achieve the same closing rate as a veteran with five years of experience.

This is a change that has never happened before.

Experienced employees have an intuition for when "that customer is about to make a move." Newcomers lack this. Before implementing EMOROCO CRM Lite, this difference in "intuition" was the reason for the difference in closing rates.

By combining GIS maps, emotional temperature data, and workflows, even new employees can now see "who to contact today" directly from the system. It was a moment where veteran intuition was translated into design.

Furthermore, by implementing the "Most Updated Desired Area" field, we discovered that "this customer's criteria haven't been updated in six months." Customers whose criteria haven't been updated provide an excellent opportunity to determine whether they've stopped considering a property or if their criteria have changed.

Changes after 6 months: Number of deals closed by new staff: 1-2 per month → 3-4 per month; Return visit rate after checking "most recent update date of desired conditions": 23%

Nine months later—the data revealed the "winning pattern."

Once nine months of data had been accumulated, I analyzed the closed deals on the dashboard. The figures that emerged were the ones I mentioned at the beginning: "More than half of the closed deals occurred more than six months after the initial visit."

Upon further investigation, this pattern emerged.

Common characteristics of customers who closed a deal (analysis of the top 20 cases):

• On average, it takes 8.3 months from the first visit to closing a deal.
• During that time, the person in charge made contact an average of 6.2 times (proactive contact + follow-up through workflow).
• 74% of deals saw a shift in emotional intensity from warm to hot 1-2 months before closing.

The figures of "8 months and 6 contacts" became the benchmark for future customer follow-up design. We redesigned the workflow to ensure continued contact for 8 months. We also shared the rule that "customers whose emotional temperature has risen to a high level should be offered property proposals on the same day."

One year later—the closing rate increased 1.8 times, and the relationship continued even with a change in the person in charge.

These figures are from one year after implementation.

The 1.8x increase in the conversion rate wasn't achieved by increasing the number of new customers. It's a result of creating a system to ensure that customers who visit us don't get left behind.

The increased retention rate after a change in personnel was also a better result than expected. When a veteran employee went on maternity leave, the employee who took over read the client's emotional state, narrative notes, and updated history of desired conditions, and began by saying, "I've heard all the details from the previous person in charge." We received feedback from clients saying, "I was anxious when the person in charge changed, but I was relieved that they took over properly."

What I learned this past year—3 lessons

Lesson 1: Dealing with the psychology of "not wanting to input emotional temperature."

For the first month, the staff tended to set their emotional temperature to "all orange (warm)." This was a psychological resistance to assigning a "cool" rating.

Since I made it clear that "emotional temperature will not be used as an evaluation metric" and "it is a tool to accurately understand the customer's state, not to evaluate the person in charge," the accuracy of the data has improved.

Lesson #2: Don't create too many workflows.

We initially set up eight workflows in the first three months, but there were too many tasks, and the person in charge ended up overwhelmed with a mountain of unfinished tasks. We narrowed it down to three workflows, and the completion rate returned to normal. Completing all tasks in a small number of workflows yields better results than completing only half of tasks in a large number of workflows.

Lesson 3: GIS maps can be used not only for "visit planning" but also for "market area analysis".

By looking at the areas where pins are concentrated in your desired area, you can get a sense in advance how many people would be interested if a property became available in that area. This has changed the priority of how I acquire property information.

Summary—What has changed by "seeing things on a map"

In the real estate brokerage business, GIS maps didn't change the "efficiency of visits." What changed it was the "depth of customer understanding."

When your desired area is displayed on a map, the context of "why that area" and "what kind of life you want to live" becomes clear. When emotional temperature is represented by color, you can see at a glance "what state this person is in right now." When these two are combined, your actions, such as "who to contact today and what to bring," will change.

The "system for nurturing customers over time" isn't about waiting. It's about consistently contacting them at the right time, with the right information, and in the right way. And it's about incorporating that into the design, rather than relying on the memory and intuition of the person in charge. Thanks to EMOROCO CRM Lite, we've been able to do that.

[The first step you can take today] Import your customer list from the past two years and set everyone's emotional temperature and preference level. The moment you see the numbers—"What percentage are 'cool' or below?" "How many customers haven't been in contact for months?"—your actions today will change.

You can try it with a 30-day free trial.
Digitalization and AI Implementation Subsidy 2026 Compatible Tool Number: DL07-0022934
Product Info:https://www.emoroco.com/

Related article

• How to systematize property and customer matching management using map integration in EMOROCO CRM Lite for real estate brokerage.
• EMOROCO CRM Lite's GIS Map x Emotional Temperature – A design that visualizes "who to visit today" through maps and emotional nuances.
• What happened to a company that continuously used Emotional Temperature for a year? — The compounding effect of CRM 4.0
• Changes after CRM implementation: What happened to companies using EMOROCO CRM Lite after 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year.
• How to systematize referral sales in the real estate and renovation industry using EMOROCO CRM Lite