How McMakler cuts peak call wait times by 3x with telli

About

McMakler is a leading real estate brokerage in Germany and Austria, pairing the local expertise of 350+ brokers across 30+ locations with powerful digital tools for seamless, trustworthy property transactions. Having raised $233M in funding over the last decade, they’re helping thousands of homeowners and buyers navigate deals with confidence.

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Challenge

Scaling personalized property support without growing headcount

McMakler was founded to simplify real estate transactions through a blend of local expertise and automated workflows. Their 20-person customer care team, in the reporting line of COO Matthias Knoche, handles thousands of calls from buyers and sellers, answering detailed questions and scheduling viewings with a personal touch.

Managing both incoming inquiries and outbound callbacks for website leads required constant agent availability. As McMakler’s business grew, call volumes increased, sometimes creating queues of 700% to 800% of active callers during peak times. This was proof of the company’s growing impact and the urgent need to evolve support to match.

Matthias knew that scaling with human agents alone came with a steep price tag. Recruiting, onboarding, and employing additional agents is costly and increases organizational complexity, not to mention the time investment required for training. In addition to that, more agents would have idled in off-peak times during the day due to the high variance in load.

Given the importance of trust and personalized service, the team needed a solution that could deliver a human-like, professional, and empathetic conversation, not just an FAQ bot.

After exploring two other AI call automation platforms, Matthias found telli. He was immediately impressed by telli’s advanced voice interaction, noting it was “far superior to other solutions we tested.” This balance of scalability and human likeness made them the perfect partner for McMakler’s growth ambitions.

“Answering every customer question was crucial, but scaling our team to handle the volume wasn’t feasible. We needed a solution that maintained the personal experience our clients expect without adding headcount.”

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Solution

AI-powered voice agents scale McMakler’s high-touch experience

The telli team jumped right in, mapping McMakler’s workflows and customer interactions to understand the typical questions and touchpoints in a property transaction. From this “fast and very engaged” onboarding process, telli built AI agents that mirrored McMakler’s trusted tone and approach.

telli’s voice agents manage both inbound and outbound calls for property inquiries. These agents answer common questions, book viewings directly in reps’ calendars, and seamlessly transfer to a human agent when needed. This allows human agents to remain the escalation layer and focus on high-impact buyer conversations and sales opportunities.

The telli agents’ natural tone and context awareness resonate so well that, despite the agents introducing themselves as virtual assistants, many callers don’t even realize they’re speaking with AI.

What’s made the biggest difference is how effortlessly telli works alongside McMakler’s team. Every telli handover includes transcripts, AI summaries, and sentiment data, so McMakler agents always know the context and can deliver smooth, consistent service. This hybrid approach allows McMakler to keep its 20-person team intact while multiplying impact.

Along with telli’s quick turnaround on feedback, often within hours, McMakler also has the freedom to make direct adjustments themselves. With telli’s Prompt Editor, they can dive into call transcripts and instantly tweak scripts for structure, edge cases, or tone, giving them the flexibility to experiment while keeping conversations personal and on-brand.

“The telli team is extremely helpful. Their product is amazing, but what really made implementation easy was being able to work with a team that is so responsive, constructive, and open to feedback.”

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Results

McMakler saves 90% on scaling costs with telli

By partnering with telli, McMakler dramatically improved customer response times and scaled support without increasing headcount. Customers now connect with a helpful agent almost immediately, even during busy periods, while the team focuses on the higher-value conversations and sales opportunities that drive growth.

The impact:

• 3x faster peak call response times
• ~45% increase in connection rate
• 90% reduction in scaling costs

Looking ahead, telli’s rapid product development paves the way for even broader adoption. Confident in the high quality of the experience, McMakler plans to expand telli to even more customer touchpoints, staying ahead as AI-powered call automation becomes the new standard.

“Human likeness, scalability, and professionalism are what make telli stand out. We’ve never had trouble handling high call volumes, and the consistent quality means we can confidently expand its use.”