The Keyes Company

Wendi Iglesias

With a strong background in real estate, Wendi Iglesias was exposed to both residential and commercial aspects of the industry from an early age, coming from a family deeply involved in real estate. She currently serves as the chief information officer (CIO) of The Keyes Company.

What are some of the key initiatives you have implemented as the Chief Information Officer at The Keyes Company?

At The Keyes Company we are very focused on providing an eco-system for our consumers that empowers them with the data they need to make informed real estate decisions and keeps their real estate professional at the center of their real estate experience. It is our goal to be trusted advisors to our consumers no matter what stage of the real estate ownership lifecycle they are in. Ease of use, intuitive processes, and automation are important to us in everything we do as we pride ourselves on being able to deliver the information and solutions our agents and customers need in a quick and efficient manner. With nearly 100 years in the real estate industry, however, we also have a deep understanding of how personal a real estate transaction can be and how much the relationship between our team and our consumers matters. Buying and selling Real Estate is not one size fits all and can be a deeply emotional and sometimes frustrating experience for all involved. So, our greatest initiative is to lead with empathy and compassion while leveraging data and technology to create efficiencies, provide information, streamline process, and market our realtors and listings at the highest level. We listen, and then we implement solutions.

“Technology has touched every part of our industry from the consumer-facing data and marketing to the back-office accounting and business analytics”

How has technology impacted the real estate industry, and what role has The Keyes Company played in adopting new technologies?

Technology has touched every part of our industry from the consumer-facing data and marketing to the back-office accounting and business analytics. Technology has put data at everyone’s fingertips, opened doors to easier communication, and provided ways to complete transactions from anywhere on any device. It has also opened doors for misinformation and fraudulent behaviors. At The Keyes Company we are dedicated to understanding the tools available to us, and we are very aggressive in the analyzation, testing, and security of new technology and tools that will bring benefit to our realtors and consumers, save on resources for our company, or ease pain points in the transaction. Keyes has a very large tech stack in comparison to the majority of real estate brokerages. 

We also have a very clear vision and understand who we are and what our goals are. The Keyes Company is a real estate company, not a tech company. We partner with tech companies to bring best in class tools to our professionals and their customers, and we very consciously watch the results and the satisfaction levels of our people always ready to adjust as needed to provide the support they need for business development and customer service.

In your opinion, what are the most exciting emerging technologies that have the potential to revolutionize the real estate industry, and how is The Keyes Company preparing for them?

At this time, I believe we have only begun to scratch the surface of what can be done through Ai and voice technology. There is so much opportunity to educate realtors and consumers, build real estate investment models, create marketing plans, provide virtual assistance to realtors, automate the transaction process, and provide actionable data to property owners throughout the ownership lifecycle. At Keyes, we are engaging with technology partners both inside and outside the real estate industry and testing various applications based on Ai modeling as we work to understand which will be most impactful for our realtors and consumers. Our vision is clear… an environment for our realtors and consumers that allows them to simply engage at any time in verbal conversation with Sunny, our Ai Bot, in order to get the answers they need. Whether it’s looking for listing and sale data, learning a new skill within our organization, creating a marketing piece, applying for a mortgage or providing the escrow deposit for an upcoming purchase; our goal is a simple, conversational platform that can communicate with our internal employees and realtors as well as our customers and provide the right answers and solutions quickly.

Can you provide insights into any ongoing or upcoming projects or collaborations that The Keyes Company is involved in to leverage technology for business growth and improved customer experience?

We recently released our new Marketing / Design center for our realtors. The design center combines automated creation of marketing assets for new listings which include digital, social, and print marketing collateral along with a DIY environment that allows realtors to create their own marketing collateral for digital, social and print through the ease of templated designs and simple drag and drop functionality. Within the Design Center we have a full social integration allowing our realtors to connect their social accounts and manage their posts across all accounts from a single dashboard.

About 18 months ago, we started on the project of centralizing our transaction processing and data in an effort to provide an “offer to close” interface for our consumers to track the status of their transaction and have full visibility into upcoming deadlines along with integrated communication with the parties to the transaction from our Homeownership App. This project has resulted in several other benefits for our realtors like having full insight into their past transactions and customers along with having access to tools to maintain those contacts and relationships for future business and referrals.

Recently, we have begun putting a strong focus on providing real estate search and market education through voice integrated technology on your websites. We believe this will prove to be a valuable resource for both our consumers and our realtors as they educate themselves on local market areas and neighborhoods. This will serve as the first stage of our Ai voice platform which we hope to one day have as the central information resource for our consumers and realtors.

What advice would you give to other real estate companies looking to embrace technology and leverage it for competitive advantage in the industry?

The first thing I would say is, “Don’t run after the shiny pennies.” There is so much tech out there, and everyone thinks they have the next ground-breaking thing you need to 10X your business. Know who you are, know what your business drivers are, and look for technological solutions that fit your needs and the needs of your customers. The technology partners you engage with should be bringing solutions to the table that fit your vision for your company, not create their vision for your company. It’s never as easy as it looks. So, you must have a strong resolve and be fully committed to where you’re headed before you start. Look at the data and results honestly. Understand your ROI.And, finally, you must be willing to admit when you’re wrong and change course.