Are you actually hurting your clients?

By Stephanie Sims

You might think you are great with your clients – you find out exactly what they want and you aim to help them find it, whether that’s selling their home or finding them their dream home. But customer service isn’t only about your clients. It also has to do with dealing with agents, and some agents don’t realize how their interaction – or lack thereof – with other agents actually does their clients a disservice.

Are you guilty of any of the following? Then you still have some brushing up to do when it comes to giving your clients the best service possible.

Not responding to other agents – Realtors who value their clients as well as the agents they are working with should promptly return calls. Why don’t agents respond quickly, or even at all, when it’s probably in the best interest of their clients for a showing to be arranged, regardless if the client is a buyer or seller? We have no idea, but this is the No. 1 complaint agents have about other agents, so it obviously happens often.

If time is your excuse for being unresponsive, some agents hire an assistant or two to make sure all calls are handled efficiently and that every client is well taken care of.

Not willing to be flexible – In the same vein as the above point, when agents do respond to other agents whose clients want to see or show a home, sometimes a strange thing happens: the agent refuses to work with the other. For example, we’ve heard stories of agents practically begging listing agents to get a showing time so their client can see the home they’re interested in. You’d think the listing agent would be flexible and forthcoming, because the goal for them is a closed deal, too. But surprisingly, and for reasons unbeknownst to us, some agents are difficult to work with in the scheduling sense. If only their clients knew they weren’t actually doing everything it took to sell their home…

Disregarding rules because you’re in a rush – If a listing has certain stipulations, like a mandatory 24-hour notice before showings, respect those rules; chances are, there’s a good reason for the rules. For instance, the homeowners may need time to tidy up their home or drop a pet off at a neighbor’s to get ready for a showing – and abiding by them can only help gain the respect of the selling agent and help close a deal.

Hiding information from other agents – There’s debate as to whether omitting information is lying or not, but one thing is clear: hiding information from clients and agents is not great for customer service. Anything you are omitting will more than likely come out, and after that, you might not have as many referrals.