6 ways your brokerage can add more value to clients

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As competition increases, brokers are looking for more ways to stay ahead of their competitors but also challengers coming from technology. Client expectations are increasing, and for many clients, their appreciation of the real estate professional's contribution is eroding.

Having invested in communicating the benefits of listing or buying with a professional real estate office, there are ways brokers can increase their value in the eyes of clients.

Here are 6 ways:

Develop the client experience

The client's experience with your company pays. Research by Qualtrics has found strong evidence that a good client experience can improve the financial performance of your firm. 86% of respondents agreed that they would pay more for an enhanced experience, and 65% saying that a positive experience is more influential than advertising.

There are several ways to improve the client experience with your firm.

Do your agents exercise genuine care, interest and empathy with your clients? Or are your clients treated transactionally? Possible ways to improve the client experience by:

• Studying the segments of your client base, understanding their concerns and developing materials or initiatives to improve those
• Implementing a communications policy that supports fast communications turn-around in the ways your clients appreciate
• Surveying customers to find your communications weakest points, such as office layouts, travel policies, etc and identify where to improve

Rewards

Gift giving can be a simple, and popular way to add incremental value to your client transactions. Gift giving is used to create positive experiences with clients after having completed transactions. Gift giving exercises can include:

• Gift items: These include your typical closing gifts, such as wines, chocolates or even consumer technology such as a Nest System. These can be affordable or expensive, depending on the budget allocated.
• Notes: Thank you notes and letters can provide a personalized touch to closings but also for new clients who have just agreed to listings or engagements to source properties.
• Mementos: Mementos are gifts used to symbolize and mark an event. These can include custom portraits of the house purchase, local maps or even scrap books created with the house as the subject.
• Allied services: With key relationships in place with interior designers, coffee houses and cleaning services, introductions and special offers (including free services) can be a thoughtful and scalable way to add value to client closings.

Reduce friction

Real estate transactions can be complicated and stressful transactions to consumers. Related to client experience, a unique value add of your firm can be the improvement of your processes to reduce the friction in buying and selling real estate.

There are several ways you can reduce the friction of the process to improve client value:

Explain and clarify the process: Knowing exactly what will happen, when, and what they need to prepare can prevent stress and confusion for first time or inexperienced home buyers. Simply explaining the process can improve the client's experience as they find the process transparent and predictable.

Checklists: Neatly organized checklists summarize what the client needs to do, evidence what you have done, all in one easy to follow sheet.

Applications: Applications, particularly cloud-based applications, can be a good option for streamlining both client and internal processes. Choose applications which your clients find easy to use to streamline the process.

Location advice: While clients may be familiar with the area they're moving into, they may not realise the logistics, complications or obligations involved. Make life easier for clients by providing advice, such as a written document, outlining the best times to move, parking /accessibility information, their new obligations in the area (such as unique neighborhood registrations), where key information can be found (school information), and key services.

Provide unique opportunities

As a real estate organization, your agents are well versed on approaching and maximizing real estate transactions. Clients can benefit from this experience, allowing you to add value to your client transactions:

• Purchase strategy: Purchasing can be made easier or more cost effective depending on the state of the market. Do your clients know this? Helping clients maximize their property values or reduce their purchasing costs and can be valuable knowledge.
• Market knowledge: Advice to your clients on market conditions, favourable locations and buyer movements can help them make more informed decisions regarding their current or future transactions.

Educate

Education is an area where real estate offices can provide unique and relevant information to consumers. Education empowers consumers to both make better decisions but also perceive more value out of their transactions. Examples include:

Information packs: This includes neighborhood guides and reports, explaining the nature and conditions of the neighborhood, activity and key information. This may include historical information that helps consumers understand the unique value in the history of their particular property and its events or construction.

Media: Media can be leveraged to provide recorded videos, virtual walkthroughs or immersive experiences with key properties. They can assist in the buying process but also may provide interesting scope for creating unique experiences related to their property and its position or history.

Communicate

A common frustration for clients is in the lack of communication. Agents who don't keep clients in the loop, prepared or engaged. However, communication can be used to both improve the transaction efficiency and develop relationships for future business.

Brokers can encourage agents to improve the following touch points:

• Office reception: Is your team friendly, contactable, approachable?
• Message reminders: Do you provide timely reminders?
• Check in calls: Are your clients satisfied with your service? Find out with check in calls.
• Meetings: Are your meetings formatted for the best possible impact on the client?
• Notifications: Are your providing clients strategic reminders to inform, remind and even persuade clients for further ation?
• Records: Are you supplying clients with helpful records that they may want to reference later?

Conclusion

We hope that the above provided you with 6 perspectives on how your firm can increase client value in their real estate transactions. Considering your internal resources, your brokerage may define the few key areas where strategic investments into your processes can increase client value at each stage of their journey.

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