March 2020 Product Updates

March was an unprecedented month for all of us and we hope you and your family are safe, healthy, and making the most of the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in. Despite the developments in the world around us, the Follow Up Boss product and engineering teams have stayed busy, and we've got some exciting changes to share. Check out what's new in Follow Up Boss!

Your Voice Shapes Your CRM

As always, we are grateful for all your feedback and support in shaping Follow Up Boss into a first-class experience for you and your team. Do you have an insight or perspective to share? We want to hear from you! There are three easy ways you can share feedback with our team:

• Directly in-app here, 
• In our Facebook community, or 
• Reach out to our superstar Support team members that are available to help you seven days a week.

Now, without further ado, here's everything we released in March!

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New Features

iOS Calling: Rebuilt for Better Quality and Smoother Workflow 📞✨👌

When you download the latest Follow Up Boss iPhone app, you're going to notice some improvements to the mobile calling experience. With so much time spent in the field, an agent's mobile phone is a core part of their workflow, so we know it has to work hard for them. We've made two big changes:

1. Mobile calls route over your cellular network

Did you know that the data and voice networks on your mobile phone are separate? Previously, calls from your Follow Up Boss number routed over your mobile data network, which means they had to compete with all kinds of other traffic for bandwidth.

In the new Follow Up Boss iOS app, we'll "bridge" your calls to your provider's native cellular voice network. The result is a noticeable improvement in call quality.

2. Logging calls is faster and easier

We've also made the call logging experience better so you can keep your Follow Up Boss data fresh with less effort. You'll be prompted to log both inbound and outbound calls as soon as you hang up, and you can do it in just a couple of taps.

These changes mean that your day-to-day experience making calls in Follow Up Boss will look and feel a little different, so check out the video below to see how it works. There's also a detailed support doc that has plenty of screenshots and some important instructions.

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This change is only for iOS right now, but we're already working on an Android version. If you're on Android, just sit tight for a few weeks and before you know it, you'll be enjoying the upgraded calling experience, too.

More Custom Merge Fields 👀🏡

Last month, we opened up access to all of your custom merge fields in email & text templates. Now, we've added a few new merge fields that allow you to personalize even further.

First up, there are three new merge fields that let you automatically insert information about a client's recently viewed properties into a message:

%viewed_address% - Inserts the last address a client viewed on your website
%viewed_address_preview% - Inserts the last address plus a preview image of the property
%last_5_preview% - Inserts the last 5 viewed addresses with preview images for each

Here's an example of how the last 5 viewed address merge field looks in action:

We've gone ahead and loaded up several new templates with these fields so you can start using them right away. All you need to do is start typing /last in the email editor and they'll appear:

Next, there are two other merge field updates you should be aware of:

A new field called %greeting_time% that will automatically add either "morning," "afternoon" or "evening" based on when the message is being sent. Give your clients an even more personalized experience by starting off your messages with a timely greeting!

The %agent_phone% field has been updated to support Follow Up Boss dialer numbers. Now you can include your dialer number in messages to make it easier to track your inbound calls.

If the reaction in our Facebook Success Community is any indication, these merge fields are going to be super useful for agents:

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That's all for March, and we're already off to a great start in April. Follow Up Boss has always been a 100% remote company, so we'll be able to keep delivering improvements and new features like we always do. See you next month!