A business looking for premises can receive an immediate acknowledgement and still wait days for a useful answer. The message has arrived. The enquiry has entered a system. Yet the person making the decision still does not know whether the property can accommodate their operation.

For Joe Sokolic, founder and CEO of Sokolic Property Group, this gap between responding and resolving deserves more attention in discussions about artificial intelligence.

“The first useful answer matters far more than the first automated reply,” says Sokolic. “A prospect needs to see that someone understands the requirement and is taking responsibility for the next step.”

Consider a hypothetical enquiry from a distributor seeking warehouse premises. The message mentions a preferred area, an approximate size and a moving date. An acknowledgement confirms receipt. A useful response establishes what vehicles need access, how the operation uses the space and whether the proposed occupation date is achievable.

An AI-assisted process could help organise the initial information, identify missing questions and prepare a brief for the responsible broker. Its role would be to make the handover more complete. The broker would still need to confirm the facts and decide how best to proceed.

Sokolic proposes that property businesses measure the time taken to deliver a meaningful response. That might be a verified answer, a relevant clarification or a clear explanation of what is being checked. It should not be measured solely by how quickly an email leaves the system.

“If we tell a prospect that we are checking availability, the next question inside the business should be who is checking it and when we will report back,” he says.

This requires ownership. A shared inbox can make an enquiry visible to several people without making anyone accountable. A useful database record should identify the responsible person, the outstanding question and the promised follow-up. When responsibility changes, those commitments should move with the record.

Automation also needs a sensible stopping point. Repeated messages asking whether a prospect is still interested are unlikely to repair a failure to answer the original question. The workflow should flag that unresolved issue for human attention.

For landlords, the same discipline can produce better feedback. They can see which enquiries were suitable, which details prevented progress and where a decision is still outstanding. That makes the marketing discussion more concrete.

Sokolic sees this as a practical test of AI investment. Technology should help a property business close gaps in service that clients can actually feel.

“Every enquiry creates a small promise,” he says. “Our job is to understand the need, give an honest answer and make the next step clear. That is where a relationship begins.”

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Want to discuss your property requirements, explore the ideas in this article, or arrange a media interview with Joe Sokolic? Contact the Sokolic Property Group marketing team.

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