We imagine there’s not even one practicing real estate agent who needs to be convinced of the importance of superior customer services when it comes to advancing their business. Further, the vast majority of realtors will already be providing their clients with good customer service, but it’s entirely fair to say there’s always room for improvement. As is the case with nearly everything, getting right down to the absolute truth of a matter often involves going beyond conventional thinking, and this is entirely accurate in the real estate business.

Here at Real Estate Leads, our online real estate lead generation system for Canadian realtors is an excellent way to augment a realtor’s client prospecting efforts. More leads equals more opportunities, and the best realtors will know that turning a prospect into a client often isn’t as much of a challenge as retaining that client for future business opportunities as well. Enjoying repeat business from a client who decides to buy or sell a home again in the future is dependent on your being every bit the knowledgeable and reputable professional they hope you to be.

That, and meeting their every expectation when it comes to your role as their realtor. Obviously, customer service is going to be a big part of that and so our focus here to day will be on a handful of proven-effective customer service practices for realtors.

There’s no industry where customer service (client service, if you prefer) is more essential than it is in real estate–an opinion I’ve found support for even as the list of industries and professional services niches for which I’m a customer service consultant and speaker has climbed above a dozen. In real estate, empathetic, patient customer service from a dedicated agent, supported by a skilled, polished, and motivated office staff, is a prerequisite for success. If you work in real estate, the principles and best practices I offer below will put you on your way to building a superior level of client service, thereby creating loyal customers, generating word of mouth marketing, and building passionate brand ambassadorship.

1. Always be Quick to Respond

Real estate clients in today’s world expect speedy service, and now more so than ever before. The saying that an hour represents a year in internet time is pretty appropriate when it comes to what they considerable to be reasonable in as far as response times are concerned. A prospective client who doesn’t hear back from you before the end of the day (at the very latest) may very well move on, or at the very least be starting to develop an unfavourable opinion of you.

Smartphones make it entirely possible to respond to any manner of digital communication quickly. You have one, so be sure to use it and always respond to client communications as promptly as possible.

2. Anticipate Client Wishes to the Best of Your Ability

It’s a fact that when a client’s wishes are met before they’ve needed to be expressed, that client is going to be plenty pleased with their realtor. Making yourself better equipped to do this requires aligning your systems and your people to anticipate what your clients – and well in advance of the point where they feel they need to ask for it.

It’s true that much of this foreword thinking is the type that only comes with experience working as a realtor, but it’s also true that you can go a long way in this regard simply by thinking about what your wishes would be if YOU were the home buyer or home seller. aligning your systems to focus on what clients really want from your processes is really a key, and make sure to understand that each and every client is going to be different from the next in this regard.

3. Take Initiative to Share Information with Clients

Clients that feel empowered tend to be satisfied ones, and that comes from the satisfaction of being possession of all the facts they deem to be important. For you, the focus should be on explaining what they need to know and why – before they need it. You can start by NOT assuming that ANYTHING is common knowledge between you and the client. Even if they do, you’re not going to be disadvantaging yourself by sharing it with them, and if anything they’ll see it as evidence of the fact that you’re making entirely sure they’re sufficiently in the know.

4. Choose Wisely When Building a Real Estate Team

Every real estate firm will have measures in place to promote their clients receiving superb service, and if you’re a realtor who’s become successful to the point that you need to start building a team then you should choose those team members very judiciously – keeping in mind the importance of great customer service in real estate. It’s true that a single disagreeable or unresponsive team member can severely diminish client loyalty. You can and should aim to become an expert at recruiting, selecting, training, evaluating and reinforcing the efforts of service personnel.

5. Master your Greetings and Farewells

Industry research has indicated that clients that the parts of an encounter they remember most vividly are the first and last minutes of them. It’s for this reason that you should focus on ensuring you have the interaction skills and moxie to make sure these parts of the conversation / interaction are most to the clients’ liking. Yes, that often means engineering them, and while that many not be ‘natural’ it’s perfectly fine to have scripts in place for these parts of your discourse and meetings with clients.

Practice them so that they are natural, but do make sure that you have them in place to make certain that you start and end on the right notes with clients.

6. Acknowledge Returning Clients in a Personal Manner

You stand to benefit immensely from being able to speak to a returning clients with the kind of ease, naturalness, and personability that indicates you both remember them and know of their individuality. This goes a LONG way in creating the impression that your excellent customer service is paired with a continuing degree of genuine interest in these clients as distinct people.

Some realtors have expressly strong memories that serve well for this purpose. For those of you who don’t, it’s advisable to make notes in your digital files on clients where you jot down little things you catch onto about them. Keeping a notes file in your phone so you can add to it immediately after meeting with them is the best idea, and you then transfer those notes to a master file on your computer once back at the office or at home.

7. Don’t Measure Yourself Against Prevailing or Conventional Standards

This one is fairly self-explanatory; you shouldn’t be resting on your laurels based on the fact you’re meeting or exceeding what’s seen as the minimum for customer service in real estate. Instead, benchmark yourself against the best practices you can find throughout a variety of service-intensive industries, and do so because that’s going to provide your with a more realistic interpretation of what clients ACTUALLY expect from ANY service provider – their realtor included.

Every client interaction with you is judged based on expectations set by the most receptive and in-tune providers in hospitality, the financial services industry, and other areas those who’ve mastered customer service best practices have reaped the rewards for their efforts.

Sign up with Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online-generated buyer and / or seller leads that are delivered to you exclusively, for any area of a city of town in Canada that’s protected for you exclusively within our system. The region is yours and yours alone, and you’ll be the only realtor who’ll receive leads for it. It’s a proven-effective way to supercharge your client prospecting efforts and you’ll have more in the way of opportunities to showcase your real estate excellence – including exceptional customer service.