There’s an age-old expression that the customer is king. This has never been truer than it is today. The last 12 months forced many customer needs and expectations to change. The result has been a host of challenges and opportunities, from the hottest real estate market on record to recruitment and retention issues for brokerages.
Ensure that you serve all your customers
When we say customers, we don’t just mean consumers. It’s true that agents are in the business of helping clients buy and sell real estate, but if you’re a broker-owner, you’re in the business of helping your agents define what success looks like to them, then helping them achieve it. In fact, agents are brokerages’ most important customers, and brokerages are shifting the paradigm and increasingly adopting models to account for this reality.
Broker-owners can count on the fact that if their internal customers are satisfied, buyers and sellers will be, too. But what does customer satisfaction look like today, with so many internal and external customer needs in flux? What can broker-owners do not just to adapt, but to excel?
Here are four areas to focus on.
1. Double down on customer care
Some things never change, including the importance of customer care. Customers want to feel valued and appreciated, and things as simple as being available, responsive, and attentive to their needs can have an enormous impact. What has changed is the mentality of who your brokerage’s customers really are. Buyers and sellers were once at the top of the customer hierarchy, but now agents are on an equal footing, if not slightly higher. Treat your customers right—all your customers—and they’ll return the favor.
2. Promote the customer experience
When your customers are happy, they stick with you. This is true of both internal and external customers, and happy agents mean happy homebuyers. Loyalty and satisfaction boil down to the customer experience: how they feel from their very first interaction with you. Removing barriers, reducing friction, managing expectations, and open communication are all key aspects of a stellar customer experience.
When your internal customer experience is on point, your agents will work hard to represent your brokerage positively and enthusiastically. This translates to a better external customer experience and more referrals, more repeat business, and a better bottom line.
3. Cater to changing lifestyles
The pandemic threw personal and professional priorities into sharper focus, and remote work has led to unexpected changes for all customers. Agents expect better mobile tools that give them more professional flexibility, while consumers are migrating to new markets seeking out more space, lower prices, or better amenities.
It’s imperative that customer lifestyles be an integral part of your brokerage vision. By integrating lifestyle, you can help your agents create the work–life balance they need in an increasingly virtual workplace while helping consumers find the perfect properties that align with their needs. If pandemic was the buzzword for 2020, lifestyle is the buzzword for 2021 and beyond.
4. Embrace technology
We work in an increasingly tech-reliant industry, with a rapidly evolving technology landscape. The beauty of this moment is that technology-driven solutions abound for many of the business problems brokerages face today.
According to the last National Association of Realtors technology survey, only 29 % of agents were completely satisfied with the level of tech provided by their brokerage. Brokerage tech is the answer to serve all your internal and external customer needs
Find out how to make brokerage technology work for you with modular, customizable solutions from Constellation1.