Have you ever felt the shift in the relationship between you and your client? The one where the sale started out really positive, both parties were friendly in emails and on the phone, and everything seems to be going so well and you can already picture the referrals that this happy client is going to send your way. But then something happens. 

You start to notice the tone of email responses getting a bit short. You’re getting the sense that your client is frustrated. They’re not providing helpful feedback to the properties you’re sending them like they did at the start of the relationship. It’s becoming clear that you might not get any referrals from this client, but possibly worse: they might be so frustrated with you that they recommend their network to NOT work with you. 

This relationship shift can be detrimental to your business. Sometimes it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact reason the relationship soured. So I recommend instead focusing your energy into building a sales process that guarantees that every next real estate client has an amazing experience working with you and turns every recent buyer into a repeat customer as well as a raving fan. Shift your focus to customer retention and customer satisfaction instead of only on initial purchases and you’ll not only save money on your marketing, but also increase your potential revenue down the road. 

According to the National Association of Realtors, 67% of the homes sold in 2018 were not made by first-time home buyers. This means that the vast majority of homes were someone’s second or third purchase. Based on these numbers, it’s not advisable to build a business model that focuses on churning out transactions as quickly as possible, even if it means the client isn’t satisfied with how you handled it. With only 33% of the sales coming from first-time home buyers, it is in your best interest to provide the best customer experience possible to cash in on every client’s second and third move. Building long term relationships is the key to growing a sustainable business selling Real Estate.

I’ve identified 5 phases in each home purchase/sale cycle. From coffee to closing and beyond, I’ve narrowed in on the biggest pain point in each and how to avoid causing them. Use these points to build a solid business model and increase your repeat purchase rate.  

1. Respond quickly to all of your leads

Just a few minutes can mean the difference between gaining a client and loosing them to a competitor. The Realtor who not only responds promptly, but also gets the ball rolling with their sale or search is most likely the one who’s going to score their next new client. 

Potential clients who are at the stage of reaching out to Realtors have probably made their big decision to move and now that they have, they’re eager to get things moving and starting the process. If you tend to take a few days to respond to the leads that come into your inbox, you’re probably loosing out on sales. And with the crowd of buyers and sellers becoming increasingly younger and more tech-savvy, even taking a few hours to respond to leads might not be quick enough. 

I’m not saying that you need to be chained to your inbox waiting for leads to come in. The process can be automated so that if potential clients have submitted inquiries to a numbers of Realtors websites, you’re the one who emerges the quickest and get their sale or purchased started right away. 

Tools like Follow Up Boss can take over the contact form on your website and turn it into a tool that filters all of the inquiries that come into your inbox, finds the leads, and automatically sends the potential client the right information through an email campaign.

To show your leads that you’re the most organized Realtor and are available to help them make their big move, you can utilize specific software to automatically send out introduction emails, questionnaires and meeting calendar links. None of these steps needs to take up any of your time once they’re set up, but will make you look like you’re on the ball and the Realtor who’s the most ready to help them in their transaction. 

2. Create an effortless client onboarding process

Once you have a lead who’s agreed to use you as their Realtor, your job is to represent your client’s best interests. And what better way to do this than to make sure you know everything there is to know about the home they want to sell or the dream home they wish to buy. 

I recently purchased my first home and it was due to a complete lack of official onboarding that was the source of the relationship between myself and my Realtor breaking down and ending poorly. The two questions I was asked before being shown properties were: 1. what was my budget 2. when did I plan to move. The result what that the properties I was being shown were not a match or things I was interested in purchasing. Because of this I was the one who ultimately found the home I needed up buying. Because I was not asked about my needs in a home, and being brand new to the process from a buyer’s perspective, only after putting in an offer did it come up that the condo association had a strict no-dog policy. And guess who has a dog? This girl! Needless to say, I was thoroughly frustrated with my representation at this point. 

What really frustrated me about this is that the fix for this is really simple. I strongly believe that all Realtors should use a questionnaire template to onboard all of their clients. They should have a dedicated series of questions built for buyers, and one for sellers. My recommendation to you is to first write down every question you currently ask your clients when you first start working with them and then over time, and as issues arise, you add those questions to your questionnaires. Over time you’ll have an onboarding sequence built that is so thorough that you’ll be a whiz at finding the perfect home for your client, and you won’t run into embarrassing situations like the one I experienced. 

Jumpstart building your questionnaire by sharing questions with trusted colleagues. No doubt you’ve each come up with some great questions that the other hadn’t. 

Use a tool like Cognito Forms to build an online version of your buyer and seller questionnaires. You can share these forms either manually or automatically for your new clients to fill out online. You’ll not only have all of your data safely stored but easily accessible. 

3. Get hyper-organized

Once that perfect home or buyer in in place, the negotiations stage can get a little chaotic if not managed intentionally. Between all the contract versions, back and forth with the other Realtor, multiple conditions, it’s easy to miss an important date, or send the wrong version of the contract (oops! That’s embarrassing). 

All of these missteps, although seemingly small to you and easy to fix in the moment, add up to looking disorganized and unprofessional in the eyes of your clients. Too many of these errors can result in them loosing confidence in your ability to represent them well. This is a common place for a relationship to start to fracture and turn sour. 

What you need is to incorporate project management tool as part of your sales process. There is software available to help you with this part of your selling strategy. Ultimately, you want to choose one that will help you consolidate all of your documents, questionnaires, contracts and client communication into one organized place. And bonus if you choose a project management software that allows for client portals so that you clients also have a single, consolidated place to find the most recent version of their contract, all of their important dates marked in a calendar and the next steps in the sale all listed out clearly for them. 

Ultimately, what you’re trying to do is to reduce the appearance of clutter and present yourself as an organized, thorough and processional Realtor. Tools like Workzone, Dubsado and Honeybook are all great options to explore.  

Loyal customers refer 50% more people than do one-time buyers, so it’s definitely worth it to invest in giving your clients the most professional and seamless process so that they’ll be more likely to come back and give your their repeat business. 

4. Add some pizazz to your hand off

Story time: I didn’t hear from my Realtor on the day I bought my apartment, and I haven’t heard from them since. Because of needing to move during Covid-19, I purchased my home from the other side of the country using a power of attorney. Even though my Realtor wasn’t required to be present with me at the time of the transaction, I didn’t even hear from them. I wasn’t expecting pizza and champagne like my good friend who is also a Realtor gives to her clients on closing day, but I was hoping to get an email or a phone call from them to wrap up the sale. But alas, radio silence.

It was made immediately clear to me that this Real Estate Agent unfortunately isn’t very concerned with customer satisfaction or building his brand loyalty.Just because the contracts are signed, conditions removed and keys are in hand doesn’t mean that your opportunities to impress your clients are over. In fact, this is the perfect time to step up and show them that you’re in this for more than just the commission. I told you about my friend who brings pizza and champagne to her clients on moving day. Her rationale is that everyone forgets about their dinner on moving day. So she surprises her clients with dinner and a bottle of sparkly celebration to pop and commemorate the special day. It’s $100 well spent and news of her amazing customer service is spreading in her area and she’s expanding her customer base.

Happy clients are the only clients who will want to work with you a second time or refer you to their friends. An article in Inman reports that 13% of transactions are from repeat sales and 17% are earned through referrals. That’s a total of 30% of all sales. You want to make sure you’re taking every opportunity to capture your share of this business.I challenge you to take a look at your hand off process and think of a unique way to show your clients that you care about them. 

5. Create an automated follow-up

Fast forward 356 days and it’s now the one-year anniversary of your client’s closing day. The day will probably just slip on by and you’re probably not on their mind. Change that and surprise them with a mailed card commemorating the day. Keep it simple and personal. Remind them that you had a pleasure working with them and that you’re thinking of them and their first year in their new home. 

There’s no way to know how many of your past clients will be moving again, or who’ll have friends who are moving in the upcoming months. Marketing is expensive and it’s much less expensive to focus on increasing customer lifetime value. You’ve already put in the hard work to make your client’s transaction an easy and pleasant one and mailing a handwritten card is a cost-effective way to cut through the noise of the competition. 

This process doesn’t need to be overly complicated and you don’t need a calendar full of reminders to help you fit in this extra step. There are many online card writing services like Postable and Handwrytten that will digitally write and mail a physical card for you. You can even pre-write cards and have them mailed out on a specific date in the future.

I recommend that you add this step into the final workflow of your purchase cycle. When you’re preparing your final documents to give to your brokerage manager, make the last task on your list to pre-write your card and set the date for one week before the one-year anniversary of your client’s move. Done! Your card will mail out in one year and you’ll look like the rockstar, super-organized Realtor who goes above and beyond for their clients. Get ready to increase your customer retention and for those referrals to start coming in my friend. 

Next Steps

If you’re looking for a simple day to transform your client onboarding process and increase client loyalty, I’ve compiled unbelievably thorough seller and buyer questionnaires and turned them into forms that you can edit to make your own and then share with your clients to fill out online. Add your own questions and branding to make these questionnaires truly your own. Never miss another detail when bringing on new clients and keep all of your answers stored in one place. Get these editable questionnaires and other brand able onboarding tools as part of my Complete Client Kit which you can learn more about there.