Property Management
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Moore Data VP Addresses Dallas, Cape Cod MLS Controversy
to the table. BE: Agents have complained of inadequate training. In your defense, training is something that is negotiable and NTREIS negotiated to have three hours of training on PC Access, and supplemental training to be done by the individual MLSs. Colthorp said that most of the shortcuts that make the system work faster are not given in the first three hours of training. In hindsight, would you have insisted that the agents get more training up front? HL: We have found that three hours of initial training is all you will be able to use productively. Before Dec.1 you have to train 10,000 agents on how to use the system before the cutover. The agents won"t use the system for several weeks depending on where you are. The retention has not been valuable. Once the agents are on the system, they can get familiar with it and they can always come back to follow up training. Cape Cod ( MLS Conversion Nightmares Are Happening Nationwide ) BE: Some of the issues in Cape Cod are the same as Dallas, so let"s just talk about the issues that are different. Cape Cod agents are complaining that the Realtor.com interface isn"t ready. As a result, the MLS is using the old system to update Realtor.com. The problem is most agents aren"t submitting their listings to the old system, only to the new one. So, what is being represented isn"t the true and current picture of available properties. Why isn"t the interface ready? HL: Realtor.com is a standard interface, and the interface has been activated. There is nothing inherent in our technology that prevent us from doing Realtor.com. Realtor.com takes information from most of our MLSs on a weekly basis. We have the capability to provide listing information hourly. Realtor.com can"t take the information at that frequency. They have started moving some of their sites to a daily basis. One account wants to go more frequently but they aren"t able to yet. CyberHomes was built from the ground up to take information hourly. BE: Some of the Cape Cod agents believe that they have a totally different system than the one what was presented at the demonstration. Who made the decision to change the system - was it Moore or the Board of Directors? HL: Again, it was a phased solution. The phased approach perhaps wasn"t clearly communicated. They have chosen Virtual MLS, a product similar to MLSWindows, and we showed them a demonstration of Virtual MLS. The only thing that is different is that we have improved it over time. The infrastructure on the Cape is the problem. We had discussions over the telecommunications issue, of meeting dates of installations. When we ordered additional lines with double the lead times, we had no way of knowing that they (Bell Atlantic) would miss that deadline several times. I had six lines going into one area, and they found that there wasn"t enough space on the plywood and now they have rescheduled the installation for three weeks later. BE: Does Moore have an impossible task? You have tech-savvy agents on one hand demanding faster connectivity and applications and tech-phobic agents on the other. Do you feel you are pleasing no one by trying to please everyone? HL: Where I get concerned is the view that Moore is behind the times. I have more agents connecting to the Internet than anybody else in today"s environment. It is not a promise - we are already delivering. Where we may have an impossible task is that we are already designing systems that allow the technologically proficient agent to perform alongside the agent who does not want to use an advanced tool set. These agents can co-exist on the same system and the slower agent doesn"t hold back the agent who wants to use technology. That is today"s technology environment. We give the agents a choice in tools and the speed in which they can migrate to those tools. Editor"s note: This story covers only a section of the Latham interview. Mr. Latham"s views on XML technology and other topics will be presented in the future. Related MLS News & IssuesPages: 1 [2]