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Great customer service
A basic blueprint for future riches.
by Chris Heagerty A myopic focus merely on transaction details can squander your potential for future sales and referrals. Agents who reap big-time referral business from past clients grasp the big picture of customer service. It is not about making a deal or closing this transaction but rather about doing such an outstanding job that you are seeding for many more.
The mandate for compelling customer service is stronger than ever. It is fueled by current industry realities: the high cost of prospecting, increasing complexity of transaction management, consumers’ challenge to commissions charged, etc. Thus, a plan that tallies only one transaction per customer is just not smart.
Aim for multiple transactions per client. Sell them their next house, list homes for their friends and family–and perform each transaction with outstanding service. Great customer service empowers your clients to work on your behalf. It creates fans who can’t help themselves from bragging about how good their agent was, and can create a wave of word-of-mouth customers. This is the difference between average income and lights-out production.
A home sale or purchase can be a customer-service minefield even for the best agent. Too many others without commitment to service can foil your plan: the inaccessible lender, the co-op agent with poor communication practices, the buyer who secretly switches lenders, the seller who is less than truthful about property condition, the inspector who creates false expectations of repairs, the closing officer with an attitude. These people all conspire to make you look bad. Your customer-service report card is intertwined with uncontrollable events, others’ incompetence, and lots of curve balls.
So how do you manage the customer experience in an uncertain and imperfect world? You want your customers to come away with a feeling that you have done much on their behalf. Creating this impression is a process based in empathy, communication, and thoughtfulness.
- Keep calm and unravel issues unemotionally to minimize client upset about the transaction. Regard client angst as an opportunity for service rather than an annoyance.
- Practice putting yourself in the client’s shoes and ask yourself what at this moment is most important to him. Then address it.
- Communicate progress regularly before the client asks. Establish up front how you will communicate and then stick to it.
- Proactively probe all parties tangential to the transaction to uncover issues before they develop into problems. If the lender says all is well, ask about details to uncover what may be lurking under the surface, like when will it go to underwriting or did the credit report have any surprises?
- Make all aware of problems early and solicit help to diffuse them.
- Go the extra mile before, during, and after the sale. This could mean bringing in pizza for the client who writes up his contract at suppertime or a cooler of cold drinks in your car in hot showing weather. Perhaps it is providing an article on making the most out of your home inspection, a checklist of what happens at a closing and what to bring, a box of "essentials" at move-in, or a call several days after closing to make sure all is OK. These are examples of thoughtfulness that equate to outstanding customer service.
All in all, at the end of the transaction when you ask for referral business, great customer service will ensure that you deserve it and will get it. It is the only way to go!
Chris Heagerty, CRB, CRP, GRI, is general manager, independent contractor business line for eRealty.com. E-mail her at cheagerty@eRealty.com.
Ilustration © Artville.
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