Emotional Intelligence: The Competitive Edge AI Can’t Replace
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping industries — and real estate is no exception. Agents have access to new tools that can help them get leverage at little- to no-cost and increase their productivity. Need someone to respond to social media leads? AI can do that. What about generating market update videos? Create an AI avatar and you don’t even need to record yourself.
But there remain some things that AI cannot do. It cannot pop-by a former client’s house with a sweet treat to say hello; it cannot feel proud of a first-time homeowner getting their keys. It’s a machine. It doesn’t have relationships, nor can it experience emotions.
So, even though AI can have interactions with your database — and agents can leverage the technology to grow their business — keep in mind that the relationships with your database are ultimately yours to own. You need to tend to people with the emotional intelligence that AI cannot.
Empathy > Efficiency
Emotional intelligence is a person’s ability to perceive, understand, and manage their emotions and relationships. Your emotional intelligence shows up in the different ways that you interact with people — your neighbor’s kid may like it when you say ‘Hi, bruh’ but the elderly gentleman down the street would be offended by anything less than a ‘Hello, sir.’ These variations in your behavior help you appropriately connect with the people in your life.
People still want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. So if you have droves of automatic responders, it won’t do much for establishing a sense of connection between you and a potential client. They still need a sense of humanity in their interactions.
According to a survey by Survey Monkey, 79 percent of users stated that they preferred talking to a human than to a chatbot. They cited negative experiences and irrelevant information as their major detractors. The reason for this is that without having the ability to change pre-programmed responses developed for the majority of clients to an individual’s particular query, a chatbot is just frustrating. Even with an LLM, all of your personal experiences, emotions, and reasoning is still missing from the context.
So, even in an industry where “speed to lead” seems imperative, don’t forget to form a human connection as quickly as possible. If you have an automated response to social media or email leads, state clearly when the potential client can hear from an actual person. This will help keep your efficiency without sacrificing your empathy, and also show your transparency.
Information Isn’t Intelligence
Just as market knowledge is the basis of an agent’s value proposition, so is fiduciary duty. An AI interface can produce functionary information, but it cannot form a relationship with the client.
Recently, a reporter for the New York Times sold his home using an AI chatbot instead of a licensed real estate agent. The process ended up saving him agent fees, but potentially costing him on listing price and sanity. He writes of the experience, “I yearned for some human empathy. This seemed like the real estate agent’s enduring value — the wise and friendly confidant who is paid to be there for you.” Though an AI prompt can deliver information scrubbed from all over the internet, it lacks the ability to filter that information through lived experience.
AI is undoubtedly a helpful tool that will revolutionize the real estate agent’s business and life, but don’t make the mistake of overestimating what it can do. At the end of the day, your business is not just a CRM but the relationships between you and the people in your database.
How are you using AI in your daily life? Let us know on Instagram or Facebook. Want more content like this delivered directly to your inbox? Subscribe here!