Crew lead Jen Berbas writes that considering the consumer perspective and expertise at each stage of the transaction means that you can optimize their course of and end result.
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This publish was up to date Sept. 30, 2024.
Recently our group has been desirous about how you can elevate our consumer expertise much more. How can we create a luxurious actual property customer support expertise on par with that of a Michelin four-star restaurant or a five-star resort? Now we have been studying books on hospitality and debating what we are able to incorporate into our consumer expertise to ship luxurious buyer service.
The place do you even begin? There have been a number of books on the subject, and naturally, we are able to go searching for examples of exceptional hospitality that encourage us. How did that maitre d’ know our names at that four-star Michelin restaurant? (Google — your picture is on there. Belief me.)
We watched the workers at The Breakers to see precisely what stability they strike: They’re heat and join with friends with out too many private particulars. How do they deal with my husband prefer it’s his birthday when he dumped his eggs benedict throughout a ridiculously beautiful rug? (True story.) By giving him the good thing about the doubt and being extremely constructive.
As we discover hospitality ideas and what units exceptional service aside, we hold returning to a easy concept: Unbelievable hospitality comes all the way down to heat and reference to our purchasers, permitting us to anticipate their wants and emotions earlier than they know they’ve them. Empathy.
The system
Once we first developed our purchaser and vendor processes a number of years in the past, we began with the premise that we wished to anticipate any query a consumer might need earlier than they even requested it. We put ourselves of their footwear and used their questions to grasp their emotions higher.
Our objective was to take away any anxiousness our purchasers might have whereas going via a course of that’s solely international to them and inherently excessive stakes. As we had been constructing this course of, we used consumer questions as a immediate to enhance our communication contact factors, overlaying generally requested questions lengthy earlier than the consumer would suppose to ask them.
This shifted our communication cadence with our purchasers from a reactive state to a always proactive method, the place we led them via the method. Empathy helped us tailor our communication to the wants of every consumer. Understanding how the wants of a first-time homebuyer require each day contact factors throughout an inspection interval, and an govt prefers the chief abstract, bullet level method.
For our patrons, this method meant at all times telling them what comes subsequent so that they by no means need to guess, and for our sellers, this meant updating them on all of the work that’s taking place on their behalf within the background.
Once we inform our sellers what we’re doing for them, we aren’t being self-serving and asking for compliments; we’re letting them know each stone is being turned over on their behalf so that they by no means need to marvel or fear if sufficient is being accomplished. “Please don’t worry about getting a new doormat; we will take care of that.”
It’s variety to present them the main points of your efforts to keep away from any pointless anxiousness on their half.
Views
It’s straightforward to see how empathy with our purchasers’ views and their expertise might create a luxurious buyer expertise, however can empathy with our colleagues and the opposite occasion to the transaction enhance the expertise our purchasers have? Completely.
Empathy in negotiations helps us be higher negotiators. Consider this as negotiation jiu-jitsu. This may occasionally really feel counterintuitive to somebody with an aggressive negotiation type, however empathy can enable us to step into the footwear of the occasion we’re negotiating with and collaboratively give on the phrases which can be much less vital to our consumer and assist our purchasers prioritize the phrases which can be extra vital to them.
In spite of everything, the objective of a negotiation is to not really feel such as you “won” the negotiation however to return to an answer that works so that you can transfer ahead.
You characterize a vendor, and the customer discovered mould throughout the inspection interval? Attempt to perceive their shock and the necessity for extra data. Permit the patrons a couple of extra days to do their analysis and deal with the phrases which can be extra vital to the vendor, such because the gross sales worth, somewhat than specializing in successful on minor phrases like timelines. It’s possible you’ll win on the timeline and lose the customer, which isn’t within the vendor’s greatest curiosity.
If the opposite agent is difficult, so be it. Hold it to your self, don’t infect the transaction along with your emotions, and definitely don’t react to it and spend your consumer’s goodwill. You by no means know what one other agent goes via; they may have had a struggle with their partner or had a toddler despatched dwelling from college sick that day. When you may give your colleagues the good thing about the doubt, you’ll keep away from expending your consumer’s goodwill, and you might simply make a pal for all times.
Good will
Our group considers goodwill in a transaction to be a type of foreign money, which isn’t ours to spend. Goodwill is the foreign money of the principals, and it’s solely theirs to spend on the contract phrases which can be vital to them.
Whereas serving to you create a five-star luxurious customer support expertise, empathy additionally means that you can create a enterprise local weather the place your purchasers are most definitely to reach assembly their most vital transaction targets.
You’ll be able to lengthen this luxurious service to your colleagues by having the grace to present them the good thing about the doubt, which is able to elevate your purchasers’ expertise and provides them higher negotiation outcomes within the brief time period and bolstering your status for being a collaborative colleague your friends stay up for working with in the long run.
Jen Berbas is the group lead of the Berbas Group in Austin, Texas. Join together with her on Instagram and Linkedin.
