When Apex Properties came to us, their 6-person operations team was drowning. Every property listing required manual data entry across four systems. Every client inquiry triggered a chain of manual follow-up emails. Every weekly status report meant pulling data from three sources and reformatting it in a spreadsheet. They were spending 20+ hours per week on tasks that should have taken 2.
The Problem: Five Manual Processes, One Bottleneck
After a detailed discovery session, we identified five distinct manual workflows consuming the team's time:
- 1
Listing data entry
New property listings from agents were submitted via email. An ops team member manually copied the data into their CRM, Monday.com board, and property website. Average time: 25 minutes per listing.
- 2
Inquiry follow-up
Website inquiry forms sent an email notification. A team member manually drafted and sent a response within the target 2-hour SLA. Average time: 10 minutes per inquiry, 15–20 inquiries per day.
- 3
Viewing appointment scheduling
After an initial inquiry was qualified, scheduling a viewing required 3–5 back-and-forth emails. Average time to schedule: 48 hours.
- 4
Agent commission tracking
Monthly commission calculations required pulling data from three sources, calculating per-agent totals in Excel, and emailing individual statements. Monthly time investment: 6 hours.
- 5
Weekly portfolio reporting
Every Friday, an ops team member compiled a status report on all active listings — days on market, inquiry count, viewing count, and price history — by manually checking four systems. Time: 2–3 hours per week.
The Solution: A Connected Automation Stack
We built a three-layer automation stack using tools they already had (Monday.com, Gmail, and Google Sheets) plus Make.com as the orchestration layer.
Automation 1: Listing Intake
Agents now submit listings via a structured Typeform. Make.com catches the submission and simultaneously: creates the Monday.com board item with all fields pre-filled, creates or updates the CRM contact for the listing agent, and generates a draft listing page entry in their website CMS. Total time saved: 23 minutes per listing.
Automation 2: Inquiry Response
Website inquiries trigger a Make.com scenario that: sends a personalized Gmail response within 60 seconds (using the prospect's name and the specific property they inquired about), creates a lead record in their CRM, and adds a follow-up task in Monday.com assigned to the appropriate agent. Total time saved: 8–10 minutes per inquiry × 15/day = ~2 hours/day.
Automation 3: Scheduling
The follow-up email includes a Calendly link pre-filtered to the listing agent's availability. Bookings automatically create calendar events for both parties and update the CRM with viewing status. Average scheduling time dropped from 48 hours to 4 minutes.
Automation 4: Commission Reporting
A monthly Make.com scenario pulls all completed transactions from Monday.com, calculates per-agent commissions based on rules stored in a Google Sheet, and generates individual PDF statements that are emailed automatically on the 1st of each month. Monthly time saved: 5.5 hours.
Automation 5: Weekly Portfolio Report
Every Friday at 4 PM, Make.com aggregates all active listing data from Monday.com, formats it into a Google Slides presentation using a template, and emails it to the leadership team. Time saved: 2–3 hours per week.
The Results: 8 Weeks Later
- 22.5 hours per week saved across the operations team
- Inquiry response time dropped from 2 hours average to 60 seconds
- Viewing scheduling time dropped from 48 hours to 4 minutes
- Zero listing data entry errors in 8 weeks (previously averaging 3–4 per week)
- Commission reporting reduced from 6 hours to 15 minutes per month
- Operations team headcount need reduced — team was reassigned to client experience improvements instead
📊 "We knew automation would help. We didn't expect it to free up this much time this fast. Two weeks in, our team was spending half their day on things that actually move the business forward instead of just keeping it running." — Operations Director, Apex Properties
Implementation Timeline
Discovery and mapping: 1 week. Build and testing: 1.5 weeks. Deployment and team training: 3 days. Total time from kickoff to all five automations live: 18 days.
If your operations team is spending hours per week on repetitive, rule-based work — the kind of work that should be automatic — book a discovery call. We'll map your top workflows, quantify the time cost, and show you exactly what your automation stack should look like.