Tempus Inmobiliaria: from reaching 4 out of 10 leads to nearly 100%

Who Tempus is

Tempus Inmobiliaria was founded just over two years ago by Martín López and Julio Nalvarte, two entrepreneurs with deep experience in the business: Julio comes from real estate banking, where he financed projects for more than 15 years, and Martín was general manager of Imagina for 10 years and its commercial manager for 6. Their purpose is to transform spaces to improve people's lives.

Today Tempus has three projects in Lima (in Lince, on Avenida Colonial in the city center and in Miraflores) and also manages a project for a large group in Boulevard de Asia.

The challenge: leads arrive when nobody answers

Most prospects search for an apartment at night, once they are off work. That is where Tempus had a serious contactability gap: in one of its projects, out of every 10 leads that came in, only 4 answered.

The cost was obvious to Julio. The company pays Meta and Google for every lead, pays the digital agency and pays the team behind it, and without a way to reach the prospect the moment they write, a good part of that investment was lost.

We pay a lot to capture leads, we pay the digital agency a lot, we pay a team behind it, and half the money was going down the drain because you had no way to contact them.

The solution: Tami, an assistant with the brand's tone

Tempus started with Pascal a couple of months ago as a pilot. The idea was simple: a virtual assistant that contacts customers as soon as they write, gives them information, qualifies them and books the appointment. That assistant is now called Tami.

The first weeks were about training. In frequent meetings (more than one a week at first, then weekly) the Tempus team gave Tami a tone of voice, a language and a way of answering that matched the brand, and in each session they reviewed how it was prospecting: how many appointments it generated, how many visits and how many closings came from those appointments.

The Pascal team is very open. All the feedback they have received, not only on tone of voice but on specific improvements, they have incorporated.

What changed

With Tami answering at any hour, contactability in that project went from 30 or 40% to close to 100%. More contacted leads meant more capacity to generate appointments and, therefore, more visits: more and more people arrive at the projects thanks to the virtual assistant.

The feeling about the acquisition budget changed too. Not every lead answers and not everyone is interested, but the base of potential customers grows and the team stops feeling they are throwing money away.

Adoption by the advisors had its learning curve. As with any change there was resistance at first, until they saw that Tami does not compete with them but adds customers to their base. Today the advisors are the first source of feedback: they identify the leads that come from Tami, explain why they close or don't, why some book an appointment and never show up, and with that Tempus and Pascal keep refining the lead profile and the quality of the appointments.

Why he sees it as an investment

For Julio, real estate companies have to compete on the housing solution they deliver: location, price, product and buying experience. Before, a large part of the team's energy went into trying to call the lead. With leads qualified by Tami, the effort goes where it matters: offering the product and the buying experience once the prospect is already at the project.

I do think it is an investment, not an expense. An investment that pays back quickly and can deliver results. But please, not everyone should do it, because it takes away my competitive advantage.