How to Provide Excellent Customer Service
Jun 25, 2008 Marketing
Providing excellent customer service is a challenge for many real estate agents and brokers. Afterall, many real estate agents do not even recognize that part of their job is to provide excellent customer service. Before you can provide excellent customer service, you must first define what excellent customer service includes.
Here are a few things excellent customer service includes:
1. Accessibility: To provide excellent customer service, you must first be accessible to the customer. The customer should be able to call, email, or mail you with any of their questions or concerns. It should be easy for the customer to find this information. Having a website with a FAQ section and all of your contact details can help you be even more accessible to provide excellent customer service.
2. Promptness: All calls should be returned and all problems resolved the same business day. Postponing a problem more than one day will cause the problem to escalate to a bigger problem, especially because you are giving the customer more time to stew over their disatisfaction or predicament. Another customer service mistake is that phone calls and messages go unreturned. Playing phone tag or constantly getting an answering machine and never speaking to a live person do not create an excellent customer service atmosphere.
3. Give the Customer What the Customer Wants: This of course is not always easy. Many times you will face a loss if you give every customer exactly what the customer wants all of the time. Many times a customer with a complaint or problem does not know what they want or what is needed to resolve the problem. Give the customer a few options to choose from. The more choices the customer has, the more the customer feels in control and feels satisfied. Giving the customer what the customer wants is crucial in providing excellent customer service.
4. Compromise: You must be willing to compromise to provide excellent customer service. Maybe you cannot give the customer everything the customer wants, but surely you can give the customer something the customer wants. Be clear to the customer you are willing to compromise and ask that they be willing to compromise as well.
5. Follow Up: This is the hardest for most people to do when dealing with customer service issues. But in order to provide excellent customer service, you MUST follow up. You can opt to send them a letter, postcard, or a telephone call. Following up with customers makes them feel as if they haven’t been forgotten and can possibly lead to future business. Following up is one of the crucial steps many companies make when providing customer service and is the step that puts the “excellent” in excellent customer service.
By incorporating these ideas in your business, you will be able to exceed customer service expectations and provide excellent customer service to your future customers and clients. Do you have any tips or suggestions on how to provide excellent customer service? Feel free to share your tips and suggestions on ways to provide excellent customer service in the comments below.
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Tags: business, disatisfaction, how to provide excellent customer service, live person, phone call, providing excellent customer service, real estate agents, what makes customer service excellent
Get More Traffic at Your Open Houses
May 11, 2008 Marketing
A common complaint among agents about open houses is the number of “tire kickers” and the lack of serious visitors. Other agents may sit at an opn house for hours and not see a single soul drop by. If you’ve been having a hard time picking up prospects at open houses, here are some ideas to get more traffic at your open house:
1. Send invitations: A simple postcard inviting others to your open house can usually boost traffic if done right. Target neighborhoods by price range or that have a high number of home aready for sale. If your budget allows, try to send a minimum of 50 invitations.
2. Knock on doors: Visit the neighbors of the open house and invite them to come over and enjoy some refreshments. This is your opportunity to find out if/when they’ll be moving.
3. Pick up the phone: Call at least 15 people and tel them you are having an open house and invite them to visit. You can call past clients, old friends, or previous open house visitors.
4. Remember the signs: A simple sign rider that says “Open Sunday 1-4″ can be useful. Be sure your directionals from main roads are clear to read and follow.
5. Advertise on the internet: Many home buyers now look online to see where the open houses are. If you’re not already listed on sites like OpenHouse.com you may want to talk to your broker on making it available for your company’s listings and clients.
6. Choose the date carefully: Some days are better than others for open houses. The weather can play a deciding factor as well as things such as sports events, graduations, holidays, and activities. Some agents have had success holding open houses on weekday evenings or Saturday morningsa instead of the traditional Sunday afternoon.
Following these 6 tips will help you boost your open house traffic and hopefully meet more quality prospects in the process.
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Tags: directionals, home buyers, how to get more traffic at your open house, invitations, Open, open house traffic, open house visitors, past clients, phone call, quality prospects, real estate agents open house, refreshments, signs, target neighborhoods, tire kickers, weather, weekday evenings
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