How Real Fastighetssystem beat its targets and accelerated growth with Upsales

Real Fastighetssystem is a SaaS company that provides a property management system. The company entered the market in 1991, when Real was a DOS application. In 1995 Real moved to Windows, and in 2008 they were early in becoming a fully web-based property system. Even though a lot has happened to the product since Real was founded, the philosophy has always been the same – to build a property system that is simple, fast and fun to use.

One person who has been part of most of Real's growth journey is their newly appointed CEO, Stefan Johansson. Stefan has been there from the start, and as a systems developer he played a big part in shaping Real Fastighetssystem into what it is today. Another key figure in Real's growth is Per-Åke Lindgren, who has two roles at Real: he is mainly responsible for sales, but also works as a problem solver and an important customer contact in customer service.

In November 2020 the company celebrated reaching the milestone of 1,000 active customers.

We called Stefan and Per-Åke to talk about how they win new customers and how they use Upsales to get better control of their sales and customer management.

Better follow-up of customers from start to finish with Upsales

With the partnership between Fortnox and Upsales, Real moved its entire sales process into Upsales. A big advantage they saw was being able to start using the marketing features and easily connect them to their sales activities.

Per-Åke explains that they had previously tried to find ways to get control and effective follow-up of leads. Now they can work with the whole sales process from lead to customer, and then automate how information is passed between Upsales and Fortnox, where they handle invoicing.

"We can now follow the customer better from start to finish, get an overview of what's ahead of us in the pipeline, and see how much more we need to push with our marketing and meetings to reach our targets." – says Per-Åke.

Per-Åke Lindgren, Sales, Real Fastighetssystem

Real used to attend a lot of trade fairs and conferences to reach new customers and get geographical reach. In recent years, though, their website has become an increasingly important channel for winning new customers.

Stefan says they also actively advertise on Google Ads and LinkedIn today to drive more traffic to their website. When they launched a new website a while ago, they also added forms from Upsales. Now their website visitors can sign up for a trial account or a demo. This helps a lot, as Real avoids double work and gets all the information from website conversions straight into Upsales. The forms also create activities automatically, so no potential customer falls through the cracks. Per-Åke explains the workflow they set up to make the most of leads from the website:

"When we get a new lead through our trial account form, we automatically send a delivery email with a full licence so they can try Real for 30 days. Then we set up a follow-up in Upsales after one to three weeks, depending on the customer. Usually, once they've tried it and had a demo of the system, they choose to become customers. So it's really important for us to keep track of these leads."

Using Upsales forms on the website, combined with being able to see website visitors, has made it easier for Real to work with its whole sales cycle. Stefan elaborates:

"With Upsales we can now follow our prospects on the website. They get marketing scores, which helps us prioritise the right ones, and we see great potential in following up these leads quickly and efficiently right in the CRM system."

Stefan Johansson, CEO, Real Fastighetssystem

Full control of sales to beat targets and drive growth

Per-Åke is the one who mainly works with Real's sales process, and much of his work starts from the pipeline in Upsales. In the pipeline, Real has set up stages showing where customers are in their buying process, and keeps track of how sales have gone over the month, quarter and year. Per-Åke elaborates:

"I set a budget and try to beat it every month and quarter. As a salesperson it's rewarding to follow how things are going in real time and see my pace against budget. Just being able to see all the active quotes I have out would be hard to do without."

In 2021 Real turns 30 and faces new challenges, as property management is an industry in rapid change. But Real is going for its next milestone of 2,000 customers and will keep a strong focus on customer value and customer satisfaction.

We look forward to following Real's continued growth.

About Real Fastighetssystem
Real Fastighetssystem is a fully web-based IT solution for financial and technical property management. Read more at real.se