Perspectives on Quality Customer Service
Look in the dictionary and you won’t find a definition for customer service.
Which is appropriate when you consider that customer service is best defined by the individual delivering it.
PAR President E. Leonard Ferber Jr. of Strasburg says personal contact is how he delivers good customer service.
“I make sure I follow up with my clients personally,” he explains. “I don’t have someone return the call. I contact them frequently.”
“Treating your client as if they were your family is important. You need to go the extra mile to take care of people and be flexible to take care of their needs. I give my clients service before and after the sale. If they hire you as their agent, it’s your obligation to do the very best job you can for them,” says Ferber of RE/MAX Realty Specialists.
Dominic Cardone, PAR’s President Elect, says he sees several components to delivering good customer service.
“Underlying all good customer service is good communications,” Cardone says. “I think of my own sense of what’s good service. I think you should return a contact as soon as possible, even if you don’t have time to help the person at that moment, you can still touch base with them and let them know that you will be working on the problem or put them in touch with someone else on your team.”
A good team is another key component. “Putting together a trusted team to give good service,” Cardone said, “is very important because no one person can be every thing to every one. And your team members should be well-trained individuals.”
Cardone, of Prudential Fox & Roach REALTORS® in Media, emphasizes education is important to customer service as well. “Developing your expertise so you can be experienced to meet a client’s needs is necessary. You need to stay at the cutting edge of real estate and stay educated to give the best service.”
He continues, “Part of education is communicating with other experts in the industry. You need to surround yourself with other successful people in the industry so if you don’t know the answer to a client’s question, you’ll know where to go to get an answer. Staying involved in the REALTOR® organization, using all the resources available to you, also helps you give better service to your clients. And getting to know all the experts in the related industries: attorneys, inspectors, appraisers, plumbers, environmental experts, etc., makes you a valuable asset to your client.”
Gilbertsville REALTOR® and PAR Treasurer Gregory S. Herb says, “I look at what differentiates us from the competition. It’s a competitive market place and you need to offer something the competition doesn’t.”
Herb’s company, Herb Real Estate, Inc., has a call coordinator to deliver an extra level of communication. “All initial contacts speak to a licensed person. As part of the procedure, the call coordinator follows up with the client the next day to make sure they were contacted by a licensed agent. We try to follow up and deliver consistency to our clients.”
Clients are also sent a letter from the broker agent, informing the client that they are welcome to contact the broker if they have any questions or concerns. His phone number is included so the client is able to contact him if necessary.
Herb says it’s the constant contact with clients that keeps your name in their minds. “We follow up with an after the point of sale survey and a follow-up contact. It’s a shame that after a person has bought a home, they can’t remember who their agent was three or four months later.”
“While we’re very high tech in the delivery of services,” Herb notes, “Our personal contact can’t be removed – it’s still a personal contact-type of business.”
Customer service can even take on a different meaning altogether when you work with a niche market in real estate like the one that serves senior citizens, according to one of the three members of the Seniors Real Estate Services Division of Howard Hanna Detweiler Realty in Camp Hill.
“You can’t treat them (senior citizens) like a normal real estate customer,” Donna O’Brien said. “There is a great deal you need to know to deal with senior customers – more so than other customers.”
Carl Heintzelman, who leads the team and has the Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES) Designation, says senior customers get special attention from his seniors team.
“One of our three team members is always available to take their calls or meet with them when they come to the office,” Heintzelman said. “Seniors usually have special needs and you have to understand that. What you are doing is more of a public service in many ways than making a sale.”
No matter how you define it, the importance of customer service, before, during and after the sale, can not be downplayed.