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Peruse most real estate agencies’ websites and some common themes emerge. There’s the promise of great customer service, genuine care, and trusted advice.
They’re great words, but it begs the question: Are you delivering on that promise? Perhaps more importantly, are you setting this expectation and then exceeding it?
When you deliver what you promise and more, that’s when you create raving fans and these advocates are the cornerstone of a successful career.
It’s how you make people feel
We might promise “great customer service”, but behind the words it’s important to consider what that really looks like.
It’s not just doing what we say we will. That’s called doing our job. It’s often something more. It’s something a little intangible.
I’d argue it’s how you make people feel. It’s the way you make people understand they’re important, valued and your priority, and to do that a whole range of different human elements come into play.
Anticipating people’s needs
Think about the best restaurant experience you’ve ever enjoyed. Likelihood is, it wasn’t just that the food was punctual and tasted good. It was the fact the staff anticipated your needs.
Water was on the table long before you felt thirsty. That next round of drinks was offered before you found your glass empty, or that extra rice appeared before you felt the need to ask.
This isn’t just a good hospitality experience, it’s about the staff positioning themselves in their customer’s shoes, considering what you’re likely to need, when, and then providing or offering that without delay.
The little things
In any relationship, it’s the little things that make people feel valued and special. It’s the tiny details, like that phone call that marks a milestone and indicates you’re thinking about someone for a specific reason.
In real estate, this plays out in a host of different ways. It’s the card that celebrates the anniversary of their property purchase or the call to let them know a house nearby has been sold.
It’s also that thoughtful gift on settlement day, or the offer to update them on market conditions a year from now because they’ve indicated that’s when they might be revisiting their plans.
People don’t know what they don’t know
We work in real estate each and every day, but our clients don’t. And they don’t know what they don’t know.
That makes our role as an educator critical, and again this is where empathy comes into play.
What information do your potential or existing customers need to make an informed decision? What might they not know but need to in order to get from where they are now to where they’ve indicated they want to be?
Removing the barriers
Yes, we work in real estate where the job description is listing and selling or managing property.
But that’s not actually what we do. Our role is to get someone from where they are now to where they want to be. And to do that we need to help remove the barriers that might be standing in their way.
That barrier might be the fact they don’t know whether the market is right to sell their property.
It could be that their home isn’t ready for sale. It might be the buyer who desperately wants to purchase but keeps missing out, or the person who wants to sell their home but needs extra time in the months afterwards before they move.
If we’re delivering on our promise and going above and beyond, we have the power to assist with each of these barriers.
We can educate, inform, offer access to trusted service providers, proactively contact people when a property that suits their needs becomes available, or negotiate terms in a contract.
We can envisage ourselves in their shoes, anticipate their needs, educate courtesy of our experience, and seek to remove the hurdles standing in their way.
That’s how you not only deliver what you promise. That’s how you ensure people feel valued, exceeding their expectations along the way.
And, if you promise, deliver and then exceed their expectations, that’s how you create raving fans who will be the cornerstone of a highly rewarding career.
Manos Findikakis is the CEO of Agents’Agency.
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