Dear MARIS members and partners,
I know 2020 was not the year any of us were expecting. In many ways, this has felt like an incredibly long year, yet somehow, it seems like March was only just a short time ago. You have had to quickly adapt to a new way of doing business in a socially distant manner, and in many cases, navigate transactions, open houses, or meetings virtually as opposed to in person. Since March, MARIS and its partners have shifted gears to prioritize agent safety and members’ access to the tools required to continue their valuable work while social distancing.
We have also had to make some swift adjustments and significant upgrades at MARIS, and with the help of our partners, that has been successful. In April, Remine launched its newest product, Remine Live, which allows for the live broadcast of an open house online in order to allow clients to stay home and view properties safely. ShowingTime and Remine also worked together to create the ability to schedule a showing from within the Remine application, allowing you to seamlessly move throughout the applications you use every day without wasting any time. Our friends at HomeSnap hosted the Fall Challenge to encourage the use of virtual education tools while also offering a unique branding opportunity to users absolutely free of charge.
This year has not been conventional, but you have continued to work hard for your business and your clients. MARIS has also continued to provide support in every way we can, transitioning from in-person to exclusively web-based education and upgrading the technology of our support teams to allow our office to remain open alongside your businesses. In 2020, MARIS hosted over 110 online webinars, in which overall participation reached well over 1,000 attendees. Our support teams have also been hard at work responding to over 19,000 calls and 20,000 emails, surpassing 2019 numbers.
This year has reinforced the already present need for greater digital infrastructure to support the transformation of our industry. We have the opportunity to build that digital infrastructure as a foundation for better business, more fluid agent-customer communication, and greatly enhanced mobile access to MLS data, and that’s exactly what we’ve been working toward throughout 2020.
I am excited to announce that MARIS will be launching Matrix X on January 19th, 2021. Matrix X will feature application interface upgrades and product functionality innovations that enhance and improve your everyday experience within the Matrix platform. Time and again, you have vocalized your need for mobile friendly products, allowing you to frequently transition from work on your desktop to work on your phone or portable device. With the latest interface updates, we’re happy to bring you a platform with renovated mobile capabilities while still allowing you to toggle back to the desktop version you know so well. The platform will boast a sleek, modern design with much needed updates to popular features like Inrix Drive Time™️, Concierge, and the widely used map functionality. These updates are just the start of a series of mobile friendly upgrades we expect to come to the Matrix platform in 2021.
This upgrade is just a single steppingstone on a long path of enhancements to the service which MARIS provides you. As your need for more advanced products grows, MARIS will be working tirelessly behind the scenes to bring you the upgraded technology you need. In the coming months, you will see more communications regarding our efforts to better MARIS technology. We have heard your frustrations, your enthusiasm, your concerns, and your recommendations for our product technology, our website, and our service, and we are using them to drive the transformation of our technology and bolster the talent of our teams.
As we continue to navigate the personal challenges that 2020 has provided, we look forward to 2021 with optimism and the next phase of empowering you with the very best our industry has to offer.
Sincerely,
David Price
President & CEO | MARIS
