Q&A MEMBERS CALL: How to Deliver a World-Class Client Experience

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Transcript: 

The question is, "What would you do to make sure that a client has one point of contact for  the entire team experience, someone who lists and buys? We know through experience that when there’s a complaint or issue, they will not relay that to their agent. Who would you have that has constant contact with the lead no matter what phase they are in? This is how I feel we gain clients for life."

So this is along the lines of what you posted in the Facebook thread. And I definitely get it.

Let me talk through what my team does and then we can talk through where the holes might be. It definitely takes a coordinated effort. But the way that we’ve set it up, we survey all of our clients, and we do a pretty good job to make sure that we get answers from all of our clients.

Sending this out is a prerequisite. And finding out where your clients are unhappy to begin with is a good start.

When we started this process, and I challenge Cheri and Tia to get 100% participation on just this simple survey. It was an eye-opening experience. That’s where we made the change from having a listing coordinator and a closing coordinator on the same process on the list side.

Right now they have their agent on the list side and then they have Kara. So there’s two people involved in the process. There's an inside sales person sets the appointment, but then there’s the agent and Kara that execute the promise that we make to them. And they have distinct roles.

Then the inside sales person calls them after the transaction, and after we’ve even gotten this to keep in touch with them.

So yes, there are three people involved, but I don’t believe having another person in there is going to improve that process at all. But we definitely got rid of the handoff. So from the time we list, John hands the listing paperwork to Kara. Kara calls up literally that second and says, hey, congratulations, we’re going to do a great job for you.

John’s going to give you a call every Monday. You’ll probably talk to him during the week as well. I’m always here in the office if you have any questions whatsoever.

On the listing side I feel like we have a very streamlined process and there’s a high level of care for our clients.

On the buyer side, either the buyer agent or the buyer ISA are making that first contact. And they’re getting them all the way through to closing. Every one of my agents on my team is not around. There’s no short-term thing that’s going on.

I feel like we have a pretty good handle. The one area that I think we need to work on is, and you can see how short it is in the training here.

Delivering a World Class Client Experience

Carowinds in my market. It’s not Disneyworld. They’re both amusement parks. But how do we get the Disneyworld experience and not the Carowinds? I’m not going to pay the kind of money we do to go to Disneyworld to go to Carowinds.

I feel like that’s one thing we could improve. But it really does come down to training. I don’t think having one person be the single point of contact for the entire team experience is the answer.

This could be an agree to disagree thing, but as long as you have your agents trained properly, and there’s ongoing training, and you know what it looks like to do the buyer consultation, how you want them to show homes, how you want them to dress and speak, how you want them to write the offer, you can have forms for that, and how you want that property closed, and where you want the contact to be from agents, I don’t think it’s as complicated as you’re making it.

I know this is a one-way conversation. I know I could pull you on the phone. But I feel like we could talk about it for a while, because I don’t have some of the problems that you have. So I think part of it’s cultural.

Like I think the burn and churn, and agents coming in and out, I feel like that could be a little bit part of the problem, and a little bit demoralizing for existing agents.

Admin staff doesn’t like change either. And once we get a solid onboarding program in place with structure and agents know what they’re responsible for and they  know what each of these four things look like, I feel like it’s game over in a good way for you.

If your agents know what focusing on developing new business looks like, they know what mastering all aspects of the sales process looks like and they know what a world class client experience looks like, and they know what it means to maximize lifetime value, that’s your job as a leader. You get people in that get this and embrace it and they get the bigger vision.