Should estate agents focus more on customer experience?
Positive customer experience goes a long way in any industry. Suggested as ‘minimising friction, maximising efficiency and maintaining a human element’, your customers’ experience makes the difference between building a reliable customer base and losing your clients to competitors. There is a 16% price premium on products or services if accompanied by a good experience. As well as that, over 30% of respondents would stop interacting with a brand after a bad one. With this in mind, providing positive customer experience should play a big part in all customer-focused jobs, and real estate is no different.
As an estate agent, you’re responsible for guiding your customer’s journey to buying a house. While helping with their biggest investment ever, it’s worth doing everything to make the journey as pleasant as possible.
It boils down to this: the more satisfied your customers are, the more likely they’ll buy through you. By putting a smile on your face and putting effort into some genuine conversation, your job becomes a lot easier.
Be quick and efficient
In the digital age, everything happens at a faster pace and, unfairly or not, customers expect you to match this in person. Customers are more likely to look back on an experience negatively if they’re left waiting for days between emails or abandoned outside for twenty minutes before a viewing. It’s best to keep on top of your work, check emails regularly, and organise your time efficiently. It seems straightforward but will make a huge difference to your customer’s experience.
Be genuine
Another obvious one, but being genuine will do wonders for customer experience. Some people will want more conversation than others, but being personable and friendly makes for better customer experiences all round. Plus, your days will probably go faster with some light-hearted conversation to keep you going.
With this, we don’t mean walking around with a fake smile plastered on your face or chatting customers to an early grave. They’ll be able to tell if you’re being genuine and appearing fake will have the adverse effect.
Offering some personal service will also help you nurture customer relationships. A quick email after the completion of a sale will show you care, adding to the customer’s overall experience of your service.
You might think that the customer experience and the resulting loyalty is only relevant in something like the hospitality industry. That’s not true. It’s easy to look at homebuyers as a one-and-done customer, but they deserve just as much care and attention as any other industry. Estate agents play a huge role in the house buying process and can influence a big financial investment from their customers. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and it’s not difficult to leave them with a positive view of the experience.
At Agent Hub, we provide you with a wide range of contacts from the property industry. With our extensive network to support you, finding other businesses to work with can be straightforward and easy. For more information, contact us on 0203 637 6811.
