Why techology without quality service sucks big time
I just read another interesting, hard-hitting article by Marc Davison on the 1000Watt Blog, Where’s mom when you need her?.
It was posted the end of April 2008, but still very relevant to real estate agents today and really, to any and all sales professionals.
Marc begins by alluding to the good ol’ days of real estate when the agent really took care of the client and went the extra mile. The client trusted that the real estate agent would be genuinely interested in her, diligently do the research, scout out the best deal, cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s.
She didn’t have to worry. She was in good hands.
With the advent of technology and Web 2.0, Davison asserts that real estate agents are making the false assumption that clients are empowered to do all the work themselves.
And when they do, that they will still be all too happy to pay the agent top commission for serving themselves.
An example of this happened to a good friend of mine who was in the process of opening up a restaurant last year. This is clearly a commercial real estate transaction, but the principle is the same.
She enlisted a real estate agent, but barely saw him. She found her own property and essentially negotiated (with the help of her lawyer who carefully reviewed all documents) all the terms of the agreement.
Just as it was closing, here comes the real estate agent seeking his commission — a pretty hefty sum, given this was a commercial transaction. Needless to say, she was flabbergasted. “I couldn’t believe his audacity,” she remarked.
Neither could I.
Technology is great, but, says Davison (and I agree) it must be integrating into an existing system of excellent customer service. And then be done very well. The benefit of enlisting a qualified real estate agent is the added value they bring in every stage of the process.
It’s not very valuable if you have to do everything yourself, which from the customer point of view isn’t very empowering.
Says Davison,
“Empowerment is not conning oneself into believing the consumer wants to do everything themselves. Empowerment sunk when real estate began believing the consumer would have no issue paying top dollar for the privilege of serving themselves.”
It’s embarrassing to even have to mention this, but clearly real estate agents (and all of us sales professionals) need the reminders. If you want to attract your very best clients, you need to do your very best work.
And then you deserve every penny (and more!) for the valuable service you provide.
