How Compass leverages monday.com to help clients grow their businesses
even faster
Meet Compass
Meet Compass
Finding and selling a home can be a stressful experience; real estate agents are hired to support buyers and sellers, guiding them every step of the way. Yet many don’t recognize that agents need support too. And that’s where Compass comes in.
Compass is a real estate technology company changing how agents and clients navigate the process of finding or selling a home. Compass pairs the industry’s top talent with an innovative end-to-end platform, making every experience intelligent and seamless.
Founded in 2012 to empower agents to achieve their entrepreneurial potential, Compass has since expanded to become the largest independent real estate brokerage in America, serving nearly 29,000 real estate agents in over 50% of US market share.
Compass is a real estate technology company changing how agents and clients navigate the process of finding or selling a home. Compass pairs the industry’s top talent with an innovative end-to-end platform, making every experience intelligent and seamless.
Founded in 2012 to empower agents to achieve their entrepreneurial potential, Compass has since expanded to become the largest independent real estate brokerage in America, serving nearly 29,000 real estate agents in over 50% of US market share.
The challenge
The challenge
Compass started out with an agent operations team whose primary responsibility was onboarding new agents, giving them an introduction to their new tools, and setting up their email account.
A few years later, Compass wanted to better support its growing number of agents with the introduction of account management so that agents would have a stronger relationship with Compass and better understand the value they provide their customers.
With that, the agent operations team evolved into the agent success team and introduced account management with a series of meetings pre-scheduled over 30 days.
“On day one they’d be onboarded, on day three, we’d talk about the CRM and so on,” says Eddie. “We also scheduled meetings with marketing, sales, and finance. But, the overall schedule was rigid and didn’t offer a lot of flexibility.” The agent success team couldn’t tailor the 30-day campaign around agents’ individual schedules.
A few years later, Compass wanted to better support its growing number of agents with the introduction of account management so that agents would have a stronger relationship with Compass and better understand the value they provide their customers.
With that, the agent operations team evolved into the agent success team and introduced account management with a series of meetings pre-scheduled over 30 days.
“On day one they’d be onboarded, on day three, we’d talk about the CRM and so on,” says Eddie. “We also scheduled meetings with marketing, sales, and finance. But, the overall schedule was rigid and didn’t offer a lot of flexibility.” The agent success team couldn’t tailor the 30-day campaign around agents’ individual schedules.
The agent operations team’s evolution into agent success brought with it a heavier workload for everyone involved. And the tools they were using to support their efforts with onboarding and account management were not as effective as they used to be.
Some of the issues with their internal toolset included:
Silos: They were doing work in email and Google Sheets with limited visibility.
Friction: They were constantly chasing updates which often resulted in miscommunication and a lack of clarity.
Manual work: There was no easy way to automate the work that kept them from staying focused on their customers.
“None of us on agent success were using the same platform, so it was hard for us to collaborate effectively, which would create friction for our agents in some instances,” says Eddie. “For example, one time an agent met with their marketing advisor to talk about their logo. A week later, they met with their agent success manager, and that agent success manager had no idea the agent was working on their logo.”
The limitations of what the agent success team was able to offer coupled with the limitations of the team’s internal toolset meant that they needed to revaluate things once again.
After many discussions, it was finally decided there needed to be a further evolution of the agent success into agent experience, focusing on strategic account management, instead. Knowing what that transition would mean for building new processes and workflows, it was time to look for a robust platform that could bring everything together in one place.
Some of the issues with their internal toolset included:
Silos: They were doing work in email and Google Sheets with limited visibility.
Friction: They were constantly chasing updates which often resulted in miscommunication and a lack of clarity.
Manual work: There was no easy way to automate the work that kept them from staying focused on their customers.
“None of us on agent success were using the same platform, so it was hard for us to collaborate effectively, which would create friction for our agents in some instances,” says Eddie. “For example, one time an agent met with their marketing advisor to talk about their logo. A week later, they met with their agent success manager, and that agent success manager had no idea the agent was working on their logo.”
The limitations of what the agent success team was able to offer coupled with the limitations of the team’s internal toolset meant that they needed to revaluate things once again.
After many discussions, it was finally decided there needed to be a further evolution of the agent success into agent experience, focusing on strategic account management, instead. Knowing what that transition would mean for building new processes and workflows, it was time to look for a robust platform that could bring everything together in one place.
The solution
The solution
Why monday.com?
Compass envisioned strategic account management involving dedicated account managers who would work on a 90-day action plan with the agents tailored to their exact needs.
Setting up the agent experience team for success meant that they needed to find a platform that would eliminate the issues they were experiencing with the tools they were already using.
Integrated workspace: Bring teams together to collaborate in one place, eliminating silos
Automated processes: Enable more significant impact by erasing manual work and human error
Flexible building blocks: Provide data insights to spot trends and inform processes
After evaluating several options, it became clear that the monday.com Work OS was the best fit.
“What we are for our agents, monday.com is for our team,” says Eddie. Compass saw the challenge agents had using rigid tools and solved it by providing agents with their own innovative technology. Now, understanding that the agent experience team was also relying on rigid tools to get their work done, Compass adopted monday.com to solve this same issue.
Setting up the agent experience team for success meant that they needed to find a platform that would eliminate the issues they were experiencing with the tools they were already using.
Integrated workspace
Automated processes
Flexible building blocks
After evaluating several options, it became clear that the monday.com Work OS was the best fit.
“What we are for our agents, monday.com is for our team,” says Eddie. Compass saw the challenge agents had using rigid tools and solved it by providing agents with their own innovative technology. Now, understanding that the agent experience team was also relying on rigid tools to get their work done, Compass adopted monday.com to solve this same issue.
Seamless agent onboarding
Seamless agent onboarding
Before monday.com, Compass lacked an integrated workspace, which meant support staff couldn’t see all agent interactions outside of their team. Now, everyone at Compass has a bird’s eye view of the entire customer journey.
“Just like the agent’s experience at Compass starts with onboarding, our experience with monday.com starts with the onboarding dashboard,” says Eddie. “It’s broken down into separate groups to see if agents are in recruiting, pre-boarding, or if they've recently onboarded.”
“Just like the agent’s experience at Compass starts with onboarding, our experience with monday.com starts with the onboarding dashboard,” says Eddie. “It’s broken down into separate groups to see if agents are in recruiting, pre-boarding, or if they've recently onboarded.”
Automations move agents between those groups once employees complete checklist items. “I love automations; they save us so much time,” says Eddie.
Cross-functional teamwork is simple with a single source of truth: “If somebody got sick or had to miss a day of work, it's so easy for somebody else to jump in, see exactly where they left off, and then pick up on those steps to continue onboarding.”
As a manager, monday.com Work OS provides Eddie with visibility into his team's bandwidth to easily balance workloads and remove blockers. “With a click of a button, I can change from Table View to Calendar View, making it easy to see which days have the most onboardings. For example, if it’s Tuesday, I’ll make sure on Tuesdays we don't have a lot of unnecessary meetings scheduled.”
Cross-functional teamwork is simple with a single source of truth: “If somebody got sick or had to miss a day of work, it's so easy for somebody else to jump in, see exactly where they left off, and then pick up on those steps to continue onboarding.”
As a manager, monday.com Work OS provides Eddie with visibility into his team's bandwidth to easily balance workloads and remove blockers. “With a click of a button, I can change from Table View to Calendar View, making it easy to see which days have the most onboardings. For example, if it’s Tuesday, I’ll make sure on Tuesdays we don't have a lot of unnecessary meetings scheduled.”
Identifying trends and patterns
Identifying trends and patterns
The agent directory dashboard houses Compass’s customer information data — everything from email address to office to license expiration date. Before monday.com, all this raw data lived in Google Sheets, underutilized.
“I wanted someone to tell me what I’m missing that I don't know I'm missing,” says Eddie. With monday.com, Eddie started to look at data visually, enabling him to identify trends and patterns.
“I wanted someone to tell me what I’m missing that I don't know I'm missing,” says Eddie. With monday.com, Eddie started to look at data visually, enabling him to identify trends and patterns.
More automation, less stress
More automation, less stress
Strategic account management means being proactive, getting in front of brewing issues before they become problems, and helping customers seize opportunities.
“Every company has business-critical information that must be 100% accurate. For Compass and real estate, that information is agent license numbers and expiration dates. With monday.com, that information is in our compliance tracker dashboard, and we’re on top of it,” says Eddie.
“Every company has business-critical information that must be 100% accurate. For Compass and real estate, that information is agent license numbers and expiration dates. With monday.com, that information is in our compliance tracker dashboard, and we’re on top of it,” says Eddie.
“Every realtor needs a license for whatever state they're in, and those licenses can expire any day of the year, depending on the state. It gets tricky to manage when licenses expire and how to stay on top of those renewals,” says Eddie.
“It’s saved us so much time — and stress.”
“It’s saved us so much time — and stress.”
Strategic account management made easy
Strategic account management made easy
Each Compass sales manager has a portfolio of roughly 200 agents each. “As you can imagine, that gets hard to stay on top of,” says Eddie. Since implementing monday.com, sales managers now have their own dedicated strategic account management dashboards.
“We have monthly pulse check meetings where we meet with support staff and sales managers to talk about their portfolio of agents. We have the agent experience manager share their screen and pull up this board, and we walk through every agent, making sure we’re talking about everything we need to know to keep them happy and healthy at Compass,” says Eddie.
“It’s really sentiment tracking and retention tracking.”
“We have monthly pulse check meetings where we meet with support staff and sales managers to talk about their portfolio of agents. We have the agent experience manager share their screen and pull up this board, and we walk through every agent, making sure we’re talking about everything we need to know to keep them happy and healthy at Compass,” says Eddie.
“It’s really sentiment tracking and retention tracking.”
All communications centralized in one place
All communications centralized in one place
Today, Compass uses its compliance tracker dashboard to flag licenses that will soon expire — and they communicate with agents on monday.com. Before, they used a spreadsheet and an email app.
“We’d sort by expiration date, and then we’d have a column where we’d say, ‘We reached out to this agent; we sent them an email.’ And then — when they responded to the email — we’d try to remember to update that spreadsheet. It was way too manual with a lot of room for human error,” says Eddie. “It was an absolute disaster.”
Eddie and his team can now email agents directly from whatever board they’re in.
“We’d sort by expiration date, and then we’d have a column where we’d say, ‘We reached out to this agent; we sent them an email.’ And then — when they responded to the email — we’d try to remember to update that spreadsheet. It was way too manual with a lot of room for human error,” says Eddie. “It was an absolute disaster.”
Eddie and his team can now email agents directly from whatever board they’re in.
One dashboard, countless insights
One dashboard, countless insights
Eddie uses the monday.com dashboard feature to pull data from all the different boards into one overview dashboard.
“This dashboard is incredible,” says Eddie. “ I can see how many agents each of my team members have; how many agents are in one of those groups we need to make sure we're talking about; and the growth trends.”
These high-level data insights help Eddie make management and resourcing decisions he couldn’t make otherwise: “I’ll look at which month, year over year, we usually see the most onboarding. Maybe we don't plan any special training that month — we buckle down and dedicate ourselves to onboarding.”
“This dashboard is incredible,” says Eddie. “ I can see how many agents each of my team members have; how many agents are in one of those groups we need to make sure we're talking about; and the growth trends.”
These high-level data insights help Eddie make management and resourcing decisions he couldn’t make otherwise: “I’ll look at which month, year over year, we usually see the most onboarding. Maybe we don't plan any special training that month — we buckle down and dedicate ourselves to onboarding.”
Easily keep track of all interactions
Easily keep track of all interactions
Eddie's team relies heavily on Email and Activities which enables his team to send and receive emails through monday.com.
“You can see that email activity on monday.com,” says Eddie. “If I send an email to all of my agents about their Maryland license expiring next month, anyone can see which agents have replied and who has renewed without needing to go through me.”
Eddie appreciates that agents can’t tell the difference between an email sent from monday.com and one sent from his regular email app. “When an email is sent through monday.com it looks like I sent it through my Gmail, there's nothing that indicates it came from somewhere else. It's outstanding,” says Eddie.
“And the best part is, if I go to my sent mail in Gmail, I'll see that email there. As a bonus, I can reply to these emails either on monday.com or in my Gmail. So it’s always going to be in both places.”
“You can see that email activity on monday.com,” says Eddie. “If I send an email to all of my agents about their Maryland license expiring next month, anyone can see which agents have replied and who has renewed without needing to go through me.”
Eddie appreciates that agents can’t tell the difference between an email sent from monday.com and one sent from his regular email app. “When an email is sent through monday.com it looks like I sent it through my Gmail, there's nothing that indicates it came from somewhere else. It's outstanding,” says Eddie.
“And the best part is, if I go to my sent mail in Gmail, I'll see that email there. As a bonus, I can reply to these emails either on monday.com or in my Gmail. So it’s always going to be in both places.”
"We’re taking all the hours we’re saving using monday.com Work OS and reinvesting them into our agents to help them grow their businesses even faster.”
"We’re taking all the hours we’re saving using monday.com Work OS and reinvesting them into our agents to help them grow their businesses even faster.”
Eddie Witcher
Associate Regional Manager, Agent Experience, Compass
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