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A nationwide “secret shopper” operation of undercover researchers found that nearly half of potential leads from online forms and open houses were slipping through agents’ fingers due to low human response rates and inconsistent followup efforts.
Real estate tech strategist Mike DelPrete — who conducted the study with the help of a firm that specializes in these “secret shopper” efforts — revealed on Tuesday that 47 percent of inquiries made through the online form on agent websites never received a human response, and 42 percent of open-house attendees were never asked for contact information by the listing agent.
Sometimes the researcher posing as a client did receive a response, but it was automated. After accounting for these, more than 1 in 3 online form inquiries never received any kind of response at all from the agent they reached out to, DelPrete said.
“Now, in a period of time when everybody’s worried about justifying their commission, what if I showed this to the homeowner that the agent was representing?” DelPrete asked an audience of real estate professionals at the Inman Connect conference in Las Vegas. “That would, in effect, be like the agent saying to the homeowner, who they’re paying to sell their home, ’42 percent of the time, I’m not going to do my job.'”
And it got worse from there, DelPrete said.
“When the contact information was given, still there wasn’t a followup,” DelPrete said. “At the end of the day, 62 percent of shoppers had no follow-up.”
Even the agents who did respond to potential client inquiries were slow on the draw, DelPrete said. The typical response came more than eight hours after the secret shopper reached out to the agent on average.
The study employed more than 100 secret shoppers and reached out to agents at 30 brokerages. DelPrete’s biggest takeaway? Consumers received remarkably inconsistent treatment, he said. Some agents were great about responding promptly and providing helpful service. Others ignored requests for information altogether — to the potential detriment to their business.
DelPrete argued that agents spend too much time worrying about things outside their control — such as changes to commission practices or the effect of higher interest rates on home sales — and ignoring things within their control that could have a meaningful impact on their businesses.
“If someone calls, call them back,” DelPrete told conference attendees. “No. 2, if somebody texts or emails you, write them back. And third, build a meaningful relationship.”
