Why Most Agents Set Up Cloze CRM Wrong — and What to Do Instead

I've had this conversation more times than I can count.

An agent tells me they tried Cloze. They say it felt overwhelming, nothing was organized, and after a few weeks they stopped logging in. They concluded that Cloze just wasn't for them.

But here's what I've learned after years of using it daily in my own real estate practice: Cloze didn't fail them. The setup did.

A half-configured Cloze account is not a neutral experience. It's a frustrating one. And frustration leads to abandonment — which leads to the same broken cycle of sticky notes, missed follow-ups, and past clients who quietly moved on to someone else.

The good news is this: when Cloze is set up the right way, it becomes the most powerful relationship tool available to a real estate professional. Here are the three mistakes I see most often, and exactly how to fix them.

Mistake #1: Importing Everyone Without a Strategy  

The first thing most agents do is dump their entire contact list into Cloze — past clients, prospects, vendors, old colleagues, the person they met at a networking event two years ago. All in one place, with no organization.

Cloze then has no way to know who matters most. And neither do you.

The fix: Before you import, decide on your segments. In my method, every contact falls into a clear category — sellers, buyers, sphere of influence, agent referral partners, and vendor relationships. Each segment gets its own follow-up cadence, its own communication style, and its own level of attention.

That structure is what makes Cloze's AI meaningful. When the system knows who is who, it can surface the right people at the right time.

Mistake #2: Not Connecting Your Communication Channels  

Cloze is designed to log your interactions automatically — emails, calls, texts, calendar events — so that every contact record tells the full story of your relationship without you having to type a word.

But this only works if you've connected your accounts. Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, your phone, your calendar. Many agents skip this step or connect only one channel, then wonder why Cloze doesn't feel intelligent.

The setup takes about twenty minutes. The return on that twenty minutes is years of automatic, accurate relationship tracking — every touchpoint documented, every conversation in context, every contact record alive with real history.

The fix: Go into Settings and connect every channel you use to communicate with clients. Email, phone, and calendar at minimum. Once those are live, Cloze begins building relationship intelligence on its own. That is when the tool starts working for you instead of the other way around.

Mistake #3: Not Using the Agenda as Your Daily Command Center  

Once everything is connected, the Cloze Agenda becomes one of the most powerful tools in your practice. Most agents either don't know it exists or open it once and move on.

That is the mistake. 

The Agenda is where Cloze brings everything together — who to reach out to today, what deadlines are approaching, which relationships need attention, what milestones are coming up for your clients. It removes the question of what to do next, which is where most agents lose time and momentum every single morning.

The fix: Make the Agenda your first stop every day before you open email or social media. Five to ten minutes in the Agenda each morning will do more for your relationship-based business than an hour of reactive activity. It keeps your database warm, your transactions on track, and your clients feeling genuinely cared for — because you are never dropping the ball.

This is the habit that separates agents who use Cloze from agents who master it.

Setting Up Cloze the Right Way  

This is exactly what The Sandra Alexander Method teaches — not generic CRM theory, but the specific configuration that works for real estate professionals who want a referral-based, relationship-driven practice.

Every template, every segment structure, every follow-up workflow in my program comes directly from what I use in my own real estate business. Because the best systems are the ones that have already been tested in the field.

If you've tried Cloze and walked away frustrated, I'd encourage you not to write it off. You may simply need someone to show you how to set it up in a way that actually reflects how you work.

That is what I am here for.

If you're ready to set up Cloze the right way — with the exact templates, segments, and workflows I use in my own business — The Sandra Alexander Method: DIY Starter Kit is your next step.