Want to Be the "Starbucks" of Real Estate Customer Service?
I am amazed how much people will pay for an experience in "anything" (including buying or selling real estate).
Take coffee for example, Starbucks the greatest marketer of the coffee experience. You can drink coffee or you can drink "Starbucks Coffee".
You walk in to the most comfortable setting in the world for drinking coffee. Leather sofas, tables and chairs to visit or work on your laptop or mobile device and Jazz greats softly playing in the background. Sitting around the coolest place to drink coffee with the coolest people on the planet around you drinking the coolest coffee on the planet too.
It is the mecca of coffee experiences...
For only a mortgage payment a day, you too can have this coffee experience. Starbucks has provided us with a ton of "critical non essentials" to enhance our coffee experience.
How can you apply the same principle to the "real estate experience" with your own customers?
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- Pre Appointment Tips
- Personal hand written note sent with your business card to let them know you are looking forward to meeting with them.
- Courier to their home or place of business a home buyer or home seller package. Something to really impress them before you even meet.
- Courtesy call or reminder of your appointment confirming the date, time and place the day before your actual appointment.
- If you are meeting at the office, let the receptionist know they are arriving. Have them greeted by their names. Offer them coffee or water and let them know you have been expecting them.
- Buying and Selling Process Tips
- Pet and kids contracts. Have a one page agreement with the children and family pet that they help with selling the home in exchange for a $25 Gift Card to Pet Smart or Toys R Us on the sale of the home. (leave a comment below to receive a copy of the one page agreement)
- Deliver a nice bouquet of flowers to their home with a small note of thanks for their trust in you. This enhances their home visually for selling and makes them feel important.
- Thank you letter signed from the company owners for selling or buying their house with you and your company.
- Allow time to pick up a special coffee before viewing homes. Pack bottled water, snacks and umbrella in vehicle for clients as well. DVD player and videos for small children.
- Mini listing cards. Create business cards on one side and mini MLS® feature sheet of their home on the other for sellers to help you help them sell their home by handing these cards out to friends and family.
- Weekly or Bi Weekly face to face meetings with buyers and sellers to review where they have been and where they are going. Re-evaluate and give them your time. Don’t just email, phone or text.
- Offer a few hours of yard work, house cleaning, carpet cleaning or home staging to really enhance the presentation of the sellers home.
- After Sale Tips
- Customer survey form sent out.
- Call them 1 day, 1 week and 1 month after the closing of the sale of their home, just to check in.
- Photo book gift as a keep sake of their home photos to remember for years to come.
- House warming party. You ask for the guest list and you send out the invitations, you host their house warming party as a thank you gift. Chance to expand your database.
- Meet on site for the walk thru and key exchange on the possession date.
- Deliver a meal on moving day.
- Provide them a young person with a truck as their concierge to help with anything they need on moving day. For example, moving, cleaning, junk removal, etc.
- Change of Address cards. Your business card on one side and photo and new address of their new home on the other to send out to their friends and family.
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Hopefully you picked up a couple tips here to take your customer service to the next level.
What are some of your favorite critical non-essentials you provide to clients?
Strength and courage,
Wade
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