Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.

Hey, Technical Terry.

What can I do about all these emails I keep getting from RMLS™ about my pending listing? It’s got a lease option right now and I don’t need more emails in my inbox!

William Wesley Wiewel

Hey WWW-

Did you know about the Pending Lease Option status we introduced on RMLSweb last month? This status is for listings which have offers accepted with lease option terms.

Just mark your listing as POP and enter in the anticipated lease end date. This will change when you receive status change reminders from RMLSweb. You’ll see fewer unnecessary emails.

When searching for listings on RMLSweb, you can also include or exclude the POP status from your search.

Good luck on taming that email inbox!

Dear Technical Terry:

I’m sure the RMLS™ office move to the Portland airport area made perfect sense for many reasons—but those of us on the west side of Portland really feel left out! It’s such a long way to drive for a training. What do you suggest?

Alan of Allen Boulevard

I feel your pain, Alan! The Portland metro area is slowly becoming Bay Area North as far as traffic is concerned. I’m pleased to report we have been working on a sustainable solution for this very issue for some time.

Starting this month, we’ve begun offering training classes in Beaverton at The Round (the Beaverton City Hall building). We chose this location for several reasons: it’s close to Highway 217, it has free parking, and they offer a variety of classroom sizes and configurations.

Our very first day of classes was met with great success! We heard many positive comments about the facilities, location, and so on.

Tell all your west side REALTOR® friends of this exciting new training location! We’ve reserved space at The Round for the next three months and expect the location to be very successful (which would result in us reserving space going forward) but the decision to keep training at this location will be somewhat influenced by REALTOR® attendance.

Take a look at the Beaverton training calendar for November and December on RMLSweb (login required).

Remember—the RMLS™ trainers love doing office trainings/presentations as well. If you want a trainer to come to an office meeting, just let us know! Email training@rmls.com or call us at (503) 236-7657 to set up an appointment.

Perhaps you know how to use email or take calls, but do you know how powerful a tool the iPhone can be? Explore and unlock the capabilities of your iPhone to increase efficiency in your daily work. This class is perfect for those new to iPhones or those who want to dig deeper into the features.

This class does not meet Oregon or Washington continuing education requirements—therefore, certificates will not be issued.

Register for iPhone for Beginners at RMLS™.

Perhaps you know how to use email or take calls, but do you know how powerful a tool the iPhone can be? Explore and unlock the capabilities of your iPhone to increase efficiency in your daily work. This class is perfect for those new to iPhones or those who want to dig deeper into the features.

This class does not meet Oregon or Washington continuing education requirements—therefore, certificates will not be issued.

Register for iPhone for Beginners at RMLS™.

Perhaps you know how to use email or take calls, but do you know how powerful a tool the iPhone can be? Explore and unlock the capabilities of your iPhone to increase efficiency in your daily work. This class is perfect for those new to iPhones or those who want to dig deeper into the features.

This class does not meet Oregon or Washington continuing education requirements—therefore, certificates will not be issued.

Register for iPhone for Beginners at RMLS™.

Perhaps you know how to use email or take calls, but do you know how powerful a tool the iPhone can be? Explore and unlock the capabilities of your iPhone to increase efficiency in your daily work. This class is perfect for those new to iPhones or those who want to dig deeper into the features.

This class does not meet Oregon or Washington continuing education requirements—therefore, certificates will not be issued.

Register for iPhone for Beginners at RMLS™.

Perhaps you know how to use email or take calls, but do you know how powerful a tool the iPhone can be? Explore and unlock the capabilities of your iPhone to increase efficiency in your daily work. This class is perfect for those new to iPhones or those who want to dig deeper into the features.

This class does not meet Oregon or Washington continuing education requirements—therefore, certificates will not be issued.

Register for iPhone for Beginners at RMLS™.

This week, we conclude our series featuring subscriber feedback gleaned from fall’s Subscriber Satisfaction Survey. (Check out our earlier posts: How Are We Doing?, How Do You Interface with RMLS™?, and How Do You Get Trained?)

RMLS™ strives to provide great value. In fact, our trainers find that many subscribers aren’t fully aware of the breadth of features available on RMLSweb. Lead trainer Gerry Chasse explains:

One principal broker I recently met put it succinctly: “most agent brokers log on to RMLSweb to learn the few functions they need to gather information for a client, never discovering the multitude of other useful tools this website provides.”

Our Subscriber Relations Representatives, Trainers, and Help Desk personnel repeatedly mention surprised reactions from subscribers, who exclaim “wow!” and “I didn’t know you could do that—is that something new?” when one or several of these tools provide a quick, informative, and efficient solution to a long-standing problem or question. Subscribers who continually examine the various parts of the website and educate themselves about the latest upgrades or changes are those who have the market advantage.

If you’d like to find out more about the capabilities of RMLSweb, check out offerings on the RMLS™ training calendar.

On to the survey…

How would you rate the overall value of the services you receive from RMLS™?

Overall, RMLS™ subscribers rated us a 3.9. Interestingly, the number of 3 and 5 ratings were tied at 738, and there was a strong amount of 4s (525).

Subscriber comments:
• “Without RMLS™ I could not do my job! Plain and simple.”
• “Nothing is perfect! And for the most part this is very good, in my opinion.”
• “I appreciate the Open House hours that you have. The one time that I signed up for a three hour class and I was to only one that showed up. I received personal one-on-one training and learned a great deal. She could have cancelled the class, but did not and that brought my attention to how grateful I am to have the RMLS. Keep up the good job!” [Ed. Note: Open House hours are at our Portland office each Friday from 10am-Noon.]
• “Thank you…I know pleasing all of us is not easy.”
• “My biggest complaint is RLMS not staying current with technology. There are lots of brokers using Apple products and smartphones with bluetooth. It’s time to address compatibility issues with Apple and switch to bluetooth lockboxes.”
• “I find the other websites to be more user friendly and have much higher profiles in search engines than RMLS. I’d like to see it be a marketing tool to advertise to clients as opposed to just an information exchange between agents with the funky rmls.com site for our clients.”
• “I practiced real estate in California and the dues you charge are a fraction of what it costs to be part of the MLS there.”
• “I appreciate the fact that RMLS™ keeps trying to improve. As I mentioned above, I
am personally looking for things which work well, not more things.”
• “I wish all the other mls organizations would consolidate with RMLS, which the
the best of the lot.”
• “The RMLS website has to be Mac friendly, period, it must work with Safari.”
• “PEACE 2 U.”

That’s it for this series. RMLS™ staff has been scrutinizing the results—subscriber feedback will be used by the RMLS™ Board of Directors to determine what projects we take on over the next year. Survey feedback impacts our work around the office every day. We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading results from the 2012 Subscriber Satisfaction Survey!

This week, RMLS™ continues featuring subscriber feedback gleaned from our Subscriber Satisfaction Survey. (Check out our earlier posts: How Are We Doing? and How Do You Interface with RMLS™?)

If you discover something in RMLSweb that you’d like to learn more about, our trainers are ready to help. In addition to holding classes at RMLS™ offices around the region, our trainers regularly hold webinars, or we can come to you!

How did you receive training from RMLS™ in the past year?

Nearly one-third of survey respondents (31.5%) received RMLS™ training at their office. Training via phone came in closely at second (29.1%). Online tutorials came in third (26.9%).  Just under a quarter of respondents (20.5%) have taken a class at an RMLS™ office.

How many times did you receive training from these methods in the last year?

The majority (49.8%) of respondents said they had accessed RMLS™ training once or twice in the past year. “None” came in second place (26.7%). And believe it or not, 33 people said they’ve used RMLS™ training 11 or more times in the past year!

Overall, were you satisfied with the training you recieved?

Our subscribers rated RMLS™ training a 3.7, just under halfway between “satisfied” and “delighted.”

What other types of training or topics would you like to see RMLS™ offer?

Naturally, answers to this question varied wildly. While RMLS™ may not offer a specific class each month, subscribers should keep an eye on the RMLSweb desktop and this blog. RMLS™ frequently posts training opportunities on the desktop, such as our upcoming Cloud CMA demonstration on December 7th. We also feature interesting classes on the RMLS™ blog once a month.

Subscriber comments:
• “Time-saving features of any kind!”
• “Statistical analysis of MLS data.”
• “Statistics for appraisers, architectural styles, proper listing of living areas, and how to better inform your buyer (and appraisers) for agents and brokers.”
• “Possibly more marketing-type classes to draw in new customers.”
• “Just basic training on things we use all the time and could use more efficiently if we had more training. Like Docusign, Listing Load, Zip Forms, etc.”
• “Continuing education training.” [Ed. note: check the RMLSweb desktop page! We post opportunities frequently.]
• “We had a few classes by the RMLS™ instructor at our office that were very helpful. They reviewed how the website works. I always picked up something new from each of those classes.”
• “I would like to see more in Eugene. I haven’t seen anything yet that makes me want to drive to Portland.”

Our series will wrap up next time with our subscribers’ overall experience with RMLS™.

Spring into action this March with free RMLSweb training

Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming real estate events & education for March in Oregon & Southern Washington. If you have an event that is not listed here, please let us know by commenting below. For future events, please send an e-mail to communications (at) rmls (dot) com.

Save the Date:

-April 1: RMLS™ hosts the 2010 RMLS™ Trade Fair at the Oregon Convention Center, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Events around the Region:

-March 4: The Eugene Association of Realtors® offers “I Have My License, Now What?” course

-March 6 & 7: Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland hosts Tour of Remodeled Homes

-March 11: Women’s Council of Realtors® – Portland Chapter hosts Business Resource Breakfast: Referrals & Networking

-March 11: PMAR® –Recognizing Fraud in Today’s Marketplace educational event

-March 17: PMAR ® hosts Navigating the Realtor® Code of Ethics training seminar

-March 25: Clark County Association of Realtors®  hosts RPAC Dessert Auction at The Heathman Lodge

Also, if you’re an RMLS™ subscriber, we have lots of FREE opportunities for continuing education credit at a location near you; click the link for your area to view the March Training Calendar:

– Coos County
– Eastern Oregon
– Eugene
– Florence
– Gresham
– Hood River
– Portland
– Roseburg
– Salem
– Vancouver

Take advantage of free RMLSweb training this February