Microsoft® Office Outlook® contains a wide variety of options that can be easily used to assist REALTORS®. In today’s fast-paced world of technology communicating via email is becoming a standard way of distributing information. REALTORS and their clients can use email in many creative ways to progress the transaction. Below are some examples of how you can use Outlook 2003 email to improve communication with your clients.

1. What’s the most effective way of using email to communicate with my busy clients? Some people receive hundreds of emails per day. One strategy that you can use to ensure that your email doesn’t get lost in your client’s inbox is to use a concise, but informative subject line. For example, if a new house becomes available on the lake that your client has been dreaming about, rather than having the subject read, "New Properties on the Market," the subject could be specifically targeted and read, "New Lakefront Home Available." This will encourage your client to view this message immediately.

2. How do I create an email link back to the newest listing on my web site? When creating a email message for the latest house that you have listed, create a link for the exact location of this house on your web site. For example, the location could be http://www.realtorwebpage.com/newhouse.htm. (Note, this is not an actual web site.) Be sure to include "http://" in your web address because some email browsers may not be able to find an exact location without this text.

3. How do I communicate more effectively with my most important clients? If you have a client or clients that you are communicating with on a frequent basis, you can create a shortcut on your desktop. Simply right click anywhere on your desktop and choose New | Shortcut and enter “mailto:email address” and substitute your client’s email address where it says "email address."

4. What’s the fastest way to schedule an appointment that my client recommends? If a client sends you an email and recommends an appointment at noon on Saturday and they want to see three specific houses, choose the email message and drag it to the Calendar on the Outlook bar, or to the Folder List. A new Appointment window will pop up for today. The subject of the email message will automatically appear in the subject line of the appointment, and the text of the email will appear in the Appointment window. Adjust the date and time accordingly and save the message.

5. How can I send an email to a client and prevent them from forwarding sensitive information to others? After creating an email message, go to File | Permission and choose Do Not Forward. Encryption will prevent a message from being printed, edited, copied and forwarded.

6. How do I prevent spelling mistakes in my email? Stopping all spelling mistakes is difficult. However, preventing many mistakes is made easy by performing a spell check on your outgoing messages. Go to Tools | Options and click the Spelling tab. Check the option for "Always check spelling before sending."

7. How do I add an automated signature to my email? An automatic email signature is one way of ensuring that your client has all of your contact information in their message, allowing them to easily find your information. To add an automatic signature, choose Tools | Options, click on the Mail Format tab. Click the Signatures button, click New, enter a name for your signature, click Next and enter your name as well as any other information you want people to have such as your email address and company logo. You can change the font and color to personalize it. Be sure to include all of you contact information as well as your website address. When you are done, click Finish. Each new email message that you start will contain this signature.

8. How do ensure that I don’t miss an email from an important client? One effective way to alert you that an important message has arrived is with sound. To apply sound to an incoming message, choose Tools | Rules and Alerts, click New Rule. Under Step 1, Stay Up to Date, click Play a Sound when I get a message from this client. Under Step 2, click the hyperlink to apply this rule after the message arrives from your designated client. Choose the name from the distribution list. Also, under Step 2, click the hyperlink for play a sound. Choose an available sound. Click next and select any exceptions from the pick list for your rule. Click next and choose a name for this rule. Choose the appropriate setup rule options. Click Finish.

9. What if I don’t want to use sound, how do I highlight important emails? The last thing you want to do is to miss an email from a prospective client or a client who is ready to purchase a home. You can use colors to visually see emails with specific information. For example, let’s say that you are working with a client and their email address is john.smith@homeowner.com. Choose Tools | Organize and click Using Colors. Next to Color Messages, choose From and enter john.smith. Choose a color and click Apply color. All messages from john.smith will be in your selected color for easier viewing and organizing.

10. My calendar is hard to view because it’s full of so many appointments. How do I better organize my appointments? One method that you can use to organize your appointments is to create an additional calendar. One calendar could contain appointments with clients and one could contain tasks. Or, one calendar could contain business appointments and one could contain personal appointments. To create a new calendar, go to the calendar view and choose File | New | Folder. Enter the name for this new calendar and choose Ok. Under the My Calendars group, you will see the names of all of your calendars. To view these calendars, select the checkbox next to each name. You can move appointments between the calendars by dragging from one calendar to the next.