Case Studies > PlanOmatic Enhances Real Estate Photography Operations with RingCentral Messaging APIs

PlanOmatic Enhances Real Estate Photography Operations with RingCentral Messaging APIs

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Robots - Wheeled Robots

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Procurement
Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Leasing Finance Automation
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

PlanOmatic is a Denver-based company that provides innovative marketing tools to the real estate industry. These include interactive floor plans, virtual property tours, and high-quality photography. Founded in 2005, the company has 49 direct employees and contracts with 130 photographers nationwide. PlanOmatic's services help real estate professionals connect with home buyers by showcasing properties in the best light. The company has been a RingCentral customer since 2014, using the RingCentral Office cloud-based business phone solution at its headquarters and providing extensions to its contract photographers.

The Challenge

PlanOmatic, a company that serves the real estate industry with photography, floor plans, and interactive home tours, was facing a challenge in effectively communicating with its contract photographers. The company was using email notifications to inform photographers about appointments, but these were often overlooked due to their routine nature. The company needed a more immediate and reliable method of communication to ensure photographers were at the right place at the right time. The challenge was to improve the process of getting photographers to the right locations at the right time, which is crucial for capturing excellent property photos.

The Solution

PlanOmatic turned to RingCentral's platform APIs to create a system of mobile notifications. The company developed a notifications app that integrates with the RingCentral platform. The app, developed in Ruby on Rails and using the Ruby SDK, was capable of sending SMS text messages in a matter of days. Notifications to photographers are triggered automatically once an appointment is scheduled in PlanOmatic’s scheduling system. Because the photographers are assigned RingCentral extensions rather than dedicated phone numbers, notifications to them are sent via RingCentral’s Paging feature rather than SMS. This means the messages pop up on users’ phones as push notifications to the RingCentral mobile app. The company also created an internal notifications API that other applications can call to send notifications via either SMS or RingCentral Paging.

Operational Impact

The implementation of RingCentral's platform APIs and the development of a mobile notifications system has greatly improved PlanOmatic's operational efficiency. The new system ensures that photographers receive immediate notifications about appointments, reducing the likelihood of missed or overlooked emails. This has resulted in better scheduling and improved reliability of photographers. The use of RingCentral's Paging feature for sending notifications has also proven to be more convenient and effective. Additionally, the company has been able to use RingCentral's reporting features to track call acceptance rates and improve performance. The success of this integration has prompted the company to consider tapping into other capabilities of the RingCentral platform in the future.

Quantitative Benefit

Improved communication efficiency with photographers, leading to better scheduling and fewer missed appointments.
Significant improvement in call acceptance rate, from 60-70% in spring 2015 to 95% in spring 2016.
Quick development of the notifications app, with the capability of sending SMS text messages achieved in just a few days.