JANUARY
Insight Feature - By Simon Brown
Last month I wrote about the difference between customer experience and customer service. I got some great feedback from agents, conveyancers and brokers alike and often the response was “sure I get what customer service is but how does it really impact my business”.
Whenever I get this question I’m always reminded of a conversation I had with Grenville Turner who was CEO of Countrywide at the time. It was The ESTAS Awards back in 2012 and the champagne was following!
Countrywide had done particularly well picking up a number of awards for excellent customer service. Grenville took me to one side and explained that Countrywide had just held their own internal awards where he handed out trophies to those managers who had made the most profit during the course of the last year. He explained that as he sat at his table at The ESTAS he saw the same managers going up on stage receiving trophies for excellent customer service and that’s when it was confirmed to him 100% that there was a direct correlation between the profit that their branches made and the level of customer service they delivered. So here are five more reasons why delivering great customer service is key to the success of your business.
You absolutely cannot buy word-of-mouth recommendations – they are priceless. You may not have the chance to do business with one of your clients for years to come but in the meantime they are the best sales team you have. They’re out there every day talking with friends, family or work colleagues or communicating with them on social media. Get your service spot on and they will recommend you for years to come.
Your care passionately about your reputation so you absolutely have to ensure a high quality customer service. Not only does this result in positive reviews and recommendations, but it helps to establish your firm in the minds of anyone searching for other products & services or information related to property. Remember great service equals trust.
Staff pay careful attention to how a firm treats its customers. When they see their employer treating customers as they would expect to be treated themselves, it motivates them, makes them proud to be part of the team and more likely to work for you harder and longer.
We see this whenever consumer studies or surveys are reported in the media. They always find that customer service is ranked higher than price. So if you get the service delivery right clients will be willing to pay for more for it.
Customer service has a massive impact on reviews and recommendations. If you have been difficult to do business with, then when a customer gives your business a review there will always be a “but”. When someone gives you a recommendation and adds a "but" a negative comment always follows and that effectively changes what started as a recommendation into a reason not to use your services.
ESTAS Key date update
28th February - Deadline for clients to submit a review Midnight on 28th Feb is when the window closes for ‘award’ reviews for the 2021 awards. As long as you have a minimum of 15 reviews from sellers & buyers or 15 from landlords or tenants (if you are entering one of the letting categories) your branch will be eligible for the ESTAS Shortlist for 2021.
May - ESTAS 2021 Shortlist Event To make onto one of the ESTAS shortlists is a great achievement in itself so throughout May we will be hosting a series of virtual events when we will announce the regional and national shortlists for agents, conveyancers and brokers.
22nd October - ESTAS 2021 Forum & Awards The biggest day in the UK residential property industry ever! For the first time ESTAS will bring together the cream of estate agency, property lawyers and mortgage brokers to see who has won the most coveted awards in property in 2021.
Delivering great service but not getting enough Google reviews?
We have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have had for our new Google review tool. 50% of ESTAS reviews are now being converted to Google, for some agents it’s closer to 80% so it’s proving to be an invaluable tool for all our agents, conveyancers and brokers.
Google reviews are a nightmare, I even spoke to an agent last week who said she received a 1 star review which said “I was after a DIY store not an estate agent!” but help is at hand with ESTAS which lets you take control of your Google reviews.
When your ESTAS account is set up by our onboarding team your Google Business review url is automatically added. This means when your clients complete an ESTAS review they are prompted
to copy the review to Google and incentivised to do so (£1,000 prize draw).
This will help to improve both the number and quality of your Google reviews helping you to stay in control of your online reputation.
This month we’re highlighting an ESTAS Conveyancer who has clearly gone the extra mile for one of her clients…
Well done Laura!
We are absolutely delighted to welcome onboard Gazeal as a Platinum Partner for The ESTAS Awards 2021. The 2021 awards will be a landmark event for the property sector as we gather the best agents, conveyancers and brokers under one roof for the first time. We will also be hosting an ESTAS Forum where we will explore the relationship between agents and conveyancers with the theme of ‘Working Together Better’.
Gazeal’s Reservation Agreement service is clearly one of the few supplier products that genuinely helps in this regard by drastically reducing fall throughs so we are absolutely delighted to have them onboard as one of our top sponsors.
Here’s Bryan Mansell, CEO of Gazeal explaining why they are supporting The ESTAS.
As soon as I saw this recipe card in the supermarket,
I knew I wanted to try it! This pasta recipe calls for Strozzapreti, something I hadn’t tried before and it is absolutely delicious! Try this recipe for a midweek, meat free alternative.
View the recipe here
Previous Newsletters:
Recently some people in the industry have said to me that customer service is not relevant anymore, today apparently it’s all about the customer experience or ‘CX’ as it’s often termed – sounds much sexier doesn’t it? However I would argue that customer service and customer experience are NOT the same thing. Customer experience is all about improving the customer journey [...]
Read moreOver the years I’ve spoken to and met thousands of estate and letting agents, one theme that comes up on a regular basis when I start to ask agents about where or how they collect customer feedback is - “We don’t, we’re old school, all our business is through word of mouth or walks through the door. This may very well have been true in times gone by but the world has moved on and through technology customer expectations [...]
Read more
