Tips for Enhancing Your In-Person Experiences with Your Clients

The life of a real estate sales professional in Ontario is very fast paced. An ongoing concern for these individuals is advertising, sales and marketing. Typically these 3 items consume the majority of a real estate sales professional’s monthly budget. 

It is a well-known fact that the cost of acquiring new clients is far higher than the cost of retaining them. Building more repeat and referral business from happy clients is one of the key building blocks to becoming a successful real estate sales professional.

Many large organizations now use a "Net Promoter Score" (NPS) to gauge how well they are achieving repeat and referral business. NPS is a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix.  It was introduced by Reichheld in a 2003 Harvard Business Review. 

Here is how NPS works – think airlines: have you ever taken a flight and at the end were offered a survey that included the question “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend the airline to a friend or family member?” Those who answer from 1-6 are the detractors, the 7s and 8s are indifferent, and 9a and 10s are the promoters. The logic here is that the more promoters you have, the faster your business will grow and the lower your overall cost of acquisition. 

When looking at the real estate sales profession the same is true – building a base of promoters is critical.  

Delivering top-notch customer experiences are crucial in building a solid base of promoters. So how can you improve your customers’ experiences, namely face-to-face interaction? 

Pre-interview – Find out what the client is looking for by having a preliminary phone call to go over the client’s goals. Make sure you understand their goals and focus your offering on what your prospect is looking to achieve. 

Respect time – When a client commits to go look at properties with you or have you to their home, while you are spending your time – so are they. It is important to respect your client’s time and have all activities pre-arranged.  

Be prepared – While you may have properties that you know your client may be interested in, make sure to bring your client information about the properties they have mentioned or other properties that directly meet their criteria. Make sure that have done the research beforehand, or if not, have the technical capability to obtain all of the relevant information about a neighbourhood to be able to represent a buyer or seller. 

Embrace technology – Apps like ViMO enable you to perform research on a property, neighbourhood or owner as it relates to sales history, demographics and more. Embracing technology and looking at apps like ViMO enable you to do more for your client on the go. This way you can review information with your client while on the road, rather than having to return to the office to perform more research. 

Under promise and over deliver – this is an old adage that continues to ring true.  Return calls when you say you will, provide information when you say you will, and don’t make promises you can’t keep. Your actions will directly impact your customer’s experience with you. 

Focusing on understanding your clients and their goals, respecting their time, always staying prepared using the most current technology while always over delivering will lead to better customer experiences. 

For more information about how you can deliver better face-to-face customer experiences please visit www.myvimo.ca.