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Every once and a while I get something that is just too good not to share. Dean is a fellow Master’s Program Graduate and is the CEO of one of the finest Ad agencies I’ve ever been exposed to. I received this article last week from him and thought it dovetailed into the branding series I just wrapped up. I hope you enjoy Dean as much as I do - Take care of your customer or someone else will In one of my recent articles, I wrote that one of the main opportunities that exists in marketing today is exemplary client care. Unfortunately, most companies devote little time to this lost art and many are clueless about the negative ramifications poor client care has on their business. My goal is to drive home the understanding that if you don’t have the right disciplines in place to super-serve your clients, you will lose them and your reputation. If you do serve them well, you will get more business, more often, and you’ll get more referrals. Guaranteed. Here’s a few thoughts.
2. Next, clarify the expectations of each client. They’re all different. So learn the needs of each and learn what has frustrated them in working with past vendors. You know, learn from the ones they fired. Often, sales people don’t know what to deliver because they don’t ask, or they assume all clients want the same thing. At our agency, we use a questionnaire to clarify client expectations and it works wonders. 3. Invest some up-front time setting up your processes and technologies to automate and simplify servicing your clients. The easier you make it, the more you’ll do it. 4. Make it easy for the client to do business with you. By finding out how they like to work, you can create a client service model for each client. Then review it with them to demonstrate how you see serving them best. This blows clients away and puts you front-of-mind every time. 5. Conduct a client survey when you’re well into the relationship to take a pulse-check on how you’re doing. There have been times I thought I was doing great with a client when in fact, they had quite a different perspective… the perspective that matters. Plus, surveys are useful tools to discover how you can do more business together or ask for referrals. Clients love to know you’re striving to make their lives more efficient, more productive and more enjoyable. 6. Ahhhhh, client problems. Inevitable? Yes! Destructive? It depends on how you handle them. Somewhere in every service person’s mindset there is a twisted idea that problems will disappear or tone down if you postpone dealing with them. When a problem arises, deal with it as if your pants just caught fire… that fast. Also confirm the client is satisfied with how you handled it every time. 8. Don’t stretch the truth with your clients. For example: “We can get that in four weeks,” when you know it will take five. “We have 45 full-time professionals, “when you only have 35. “Our client satisfaction rate is 100%,” when it’s pushing 80%. We call these sales exaggerations and they’re as common as breathing. If you tell the truth, your character conviction will multiply your results, make you feel better about yourself, and you will create stronger relationships. If you tell little white lies, well, you’re simply a liar. 9. Exceed customer expectations. You don’t have to do it every time, but make it your goal to try. If you exceed expectations occasionally, your client’s perspective will be that you do it all the time.
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| PS. Have you seen our individual agent and team program that combines coaching, advanced marketing strategies with hundreds of pieces of personalized print ready marketing collateral, specialized training, and all the tools you need to get into the top 1% of agents nationwide? Check out YourRECoach.com for more the details. | ||||||||
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1. The first step to amazing client care is just that. You must care. You can’t fake caring. Clients can spot a self-serving sales geek a mile away. If you are out for yourself rather than for your clients, go find a tree, sit under it for a while, and get clear on what it will mean if you get in touch with genuinely caring for your clients. This is client care 101.
7. Keep your commitments to your clients. Sound elementary? You’d be surprised at how many people keep just 70% of their commitments and call themselves pros. Show up on time, deliver when you promised, and follow-up when you said you would. Can we keep every commitment every time? No, but you can often renegotiate it prior to the commitment deadline if you’re having difficulty. That’s your lifeline.
I am not an advocate for very many outside products or services. One, there are millions of them out there and two, I am very, very picky as to which ones I endorse and put my name behind. But every once in a while, something comes across that is so innovative and spectacular that I feel compelled to put it out there.
There are good books, and there are great books – Ries and Trout wrote a great book about marketing that apply across industries and has some tremendous application to the real estate business. Here are the lessons summarized from the 
estate professional who is unbelievably talented and will give them amazing service and that you are the recommended choice for their future real estate needs. 
Those that make it in this industry in today’s world are those that approach it with an amount of business prowess. Unfortunately, that isn’t taught in the “learn everything you need to know to become successful in real estate in two weeks” class. So, we throw the newbies to the vultures (vendors who sell BS products that do nothing but line the pockets of the vendors and serve as filler our nation’s dumps). We let them sling mud on a wall and see what sticks and hope against hope that they will be one of the very few fortunate ones who will survive the first three years.
How do you talk to yourself? No really, when no one else is around how do you find yourself communicating with the person in the mirror? Do you wake up and great yourself with a celebratory round of applause or do you stumble into the bathroom rub your eyes and bemoan how the scale is not cooperating and it “looks like it’s going to be ‘one of those’ days?”
many BMW owners would cop to ego being their primary reason for buying the car? With that said – let’s not beat up on the BMW crowd too bad, the same could be said about Lexus, Mercedes and others and they don’t have the distinction of being the “Ultimate Driving Machine.”
Customers are demanding a perfect fit between what they need and what you offer. It didn’t used to be this tough to please customers, but it is now. Good enough isn’t good enough. The point here is that you want the details of what you offer to fit 100% with the exact needs (details) of the person buying. They want a perfect mix, hookup, and connection. It’s similar to the fact that your computer DEMANDS perfect software codes or modem connections in order to work. Even one digit messes up the system. The same is true in real estate; clients don’t just want you to be good and competent. They want you to have some relating expertise to solve their exact problem in record time.
First, if I asked how much of your business comes from your SOI, you’d probably tell me that it is 70-90%. Although that is true, it is very hard to use that in a meaningful way when we are trying to grow our net income. With our coaching, we use the yield number. You would work through your individual yield during your initial coaching session and re-visit it annually during your yearly check up so you can stay on track. But as a reminder, your yield is how many transactions out of every 100 SOI relationships you generate a year.