Identify Customer Needs and Expectations

Identify customer needs and expectations

Contents

Overview

Introduction to Evansdale Realty

Who are our customers?

Handling customer enquiries

Phone-ins

Walk-ins

Time wasters

Email enquiries

What do customers expect?

Fundamental customer expectations

What do customers want?

Finding out what customers need: listening, questioning, negotiating

Listening

Questioning

Negotiation skills

Check your learning

Summary

Overview

Can youthink of a time when you’ve felt either happy or unhappy about your experience as a customer? It might have been face-to-face at the local supermarket, service station or post office or perhaps when you’ve made a customer enquiry on the phone.

We tend to feel valued as customers when we know that our business is welcome and that our needs and expectations have been understood.

In this reading, we’ll look at what customers need and expect — specifically, property customers. To start, we’ll look at who are likely to be your customers. In the property industry, this is likely to include both the customer with whom you have a single, or one-off, encounter (eg the sale of a house) and the customer with whom you have ongoing, or multiple, encounters (eg the management of a rental property).

Each enquiry from each customer is possibly the first step in a long lasting and valuable business relationship for your agency, so it needs to be treated with importance.We will touch on some key issues relating to customer service but, more importantly for this topic, we will look at ways to identify and clarify a customer’s needs, including the important use of questioning techniques.

We will use a broad definition of “customers”, which includes tenants and buyers as well as landlords and vendors.

This topic will support you in building the knowledge and developing the skills to apply it to:

• identify a customer’s needs and expectations.

Introduction to Evansdale Realty

Throughout this topic you’ll see comments from the staff at the fictional real estate agency, Evansdale Realty.

Evansdale Realty has been operating in Evansdale, BelmoreHeights and surrounding areas, and as far out as BrunswickPark, for over 15 years. It specialises in commercial and residential sales and leasing.

/ Sarah Hampden, Manager
Sarah is the licensee-in-charge and manager of Evansdale Realty. As licensee, she oversees all aspects of the business: sales, property management, trust accounting and strata management. She manages all aspects of staffing, including induction and training.
/ Vince Berger, Sales Manager
Vince is responsible for the day-to-day management of the sales team: listing, advertising, open house and other inspections for both commercial and residential properties.
/ Adrian Carrasco, Sales Consultant
Adrian works on the sales team and helps Vince with all aspects of the sales process, both in the office and on the road.
/ Jackie Mansour, Reception/Sales Support
Jackie wears two hats in Evansdale Realty – she’s the receptionist and also supports the sales team. She’s in charge of all office procedures and helps with the advertising, listings and photo displays.
/ Ellen Chu, Property Manager
Ellen manages Evansdale Realty’s rental property division. She’s responsible for tracking down, inspecting, listing and letting properties and collecting rent on behalf of the owners. She has responsibility for tenant selection and sign-up for all tenancy agreements as well as for the financial aspects of leasing.
/ Dave Mathews, Assistant Property Manager
Dave helps Ellen in all aspects of her work by keeping the internal property management systems running smoothly. He’s also involved in advertising properties for lease and organising repairs and maintenance.

Who are our customers?

Any attempt to identify customers’ needs and expectations must start with an examination of the question, “Who are our customers?”

The most basic definition of an agency’s customers would simply include anyone who uses the agency’s services. This definition suggests that customers, or clients, are not just principals (people who pay the agency a fee, as described above). This definition includesnot only buyers and tenants but alsosuppliers, like the printing consultant or the photocopier salesperson.

Remember that for every different type of agency (eg stock and station, residential, commercial or industrial), there are likely to be different types of customers and clients.

Customers or clients?

Some agents distinguish between the use of the words ‘client’ and ‘customer’. They say that for legal reasons, the word ‘client’ should be restricted only to describe those who pay you a fee. In fact, some agents avoid using the word ‘client’ altogether, also for legal reasons. They use ‘property owner’ or ‘vendor’ and ‘landlord’, although even ‘landlord’ is a bit old-fashioned and even sexist.

For our learning purposes in this reading document, we will use the words ‘customer’ and ‘client’ interchangeably.

Buyers and sellers agents

The buyer of a property can pay a fee to an agent if they want that agent to act specifically in their interests. In such cases, the agent is known as the buyers agent. This arrangement between an agent and a buyer is less common in Australia than it is in other countries eg the USA but it does has definite advantages. A buyers agent cannot simultaneouslyact for the vendor of a property the buyer is interested in, since this would lead to a conflict of interest.

The extent of the services provided to the client by a buyers agent may vary according to the terms of the understanding agreed to by both parties.

Internal clients

A wider philosophy of client or customer relations also positions clients as beinginternal to the organisation. One department receives service from another, and is a client of that department. In dealing with your internal clients, you should use the same communication skills as you use with your external clients. An example might be the graphic design team using the services of the human resources department in an advertising agency. This means the graphic design team is an internal customer of the HR department.

Whether internal or external, all customers feel they have the best service when staff members respond to questions and requests in a positive and personalised way.

It’s not difficult to achieve this! Some ways to do it are:

• be friendly and helpful, smile and make eye contact
• ask the customer for their name and use it to address them
• listen to the customers needs and give them your individual attention
• promptly refer the customer to another member of staff if you can’t help with their query.

/ Think of your own experiences where someone has offered you outstanding customer service. How have you been made to feel valued and important? What strategies did the person you’re thinking of use to make you feel this way?

Jackie Mansour, Sales Support and Receptionist / At Evansdale Realty, I assist the sales team but also am responsible for managing our reception area. This means answering the phone! On our busier mornings (which are always Mondays), we will receive around 50–60 calls. The callers are usually customers with enquiries about properties they have inspected over the weekend.
I just don’t have time to think about whether a caller is a “customer” or not! To me, all ours calls are important. I try to imagine that everyone I speak to is a person who may end up buying or renting one of our properties. That way, everyone receives the sort of customer service I would expect as well.

Handling customer enquiries

Enquiries are the ‘lifeblood’ of agency business. If handled well, they lead to new business—new properties managed or new properties sold. If handled badly, they represent lost opportunities.

There are three main types of property enquiry:

• the phone-in enquiry, from people looking for a property to rent or buy, or looking for an agent to sell or manage their property
• the walk-in enquiry, where someone comes to the office looking for a property to rent or buy or looking for an agent to sell or manage their property
• an email enquiry regarding a property listed on your agency’s Web site, or generated as a result of general agency advertising.

Vince Berger, Sales Manager / At Evansdale Realty, as with many other successful agencies, we have some guidelines for handling enquiries. This means that, whenever I take any type of enquiry, I have three initial goals: to record the enquirer’s name, to get his or her phone number and to line up an appointment.
I have to record these details for every enquiry, so that, even if we can’t match the client with a property straight away, I can follow up later on, if a suitable property becomes available. Of course, after this our goal is to try to find out exactly what the client needs.

Phone-ins

For phone-ins, the receptionist passes the call on to the agent who is responsible for handling that type of enquiry. For example, if it’s a call about leasing a property, it goes to the property manager or assistant property manager. If an agent is named in an ad, a sign or a leaflet, the caller may ask to speak to that agent directly.

For new enquiries not related to a particular advertisement, most agencies have a system for rotating and sharing incoming calls.

This ensures that:

• enquiries are fairly distributed and shared by all appropriate staff
• staff won’t be tempted to rush to answer the incoming calls themselves

The latter point can be a real problem, especially with competing salespeople. Without a system like this in place, the scramble to pick up the phone can come across as urgent. This might put off some callers.

Getting the caller’s name and number

Jackie Mansour, Reception/ sales support / One thing I was confused about when I first started at Evansdale Realty was whether I should ask callers for their name when an agent is available to speak to them. On the one hand, callers expect this—they would think it’s quite reasonable. On the other, I felt it wasn’t really necessary because the agent who takes the call will take down all the caller’s details anyway. Callers who are impatient or busy might resent me asking them their name. Some of them would prefer just to hang up and try again later if the agent they want to talk to isn’t available.
These days, I don’t ask callers for their name – if they give it (and quite a few of them do) I use it, of course. Otherwise I leave it to the agent to get the details.

Vince Berger, Sales manager / When Adrian first started with us, he wasn’t particularly good at answering the phone. He’d be busy doing something else and got stressed if the phone rang. He used to forget to find out who he was talking to until he was half-way through the conversation. So here are some of the hints I gave him:
Sound friendly and helpful. Phones are impersonal instruments and you need to make a special effort, particularly with the tone of your voice, to sound warm and enthusiastic.
Offer a warm greeting and volunteer your name. After this it is entirely reasonable for you to ask for the name of the caller in return, followed by a rejoinder such as: ‘Hello Mrs Bryant, can I have your phone number as well?’ Then ask how you can help.
Alternatively, give your name on picking up the phone and then immediately offer to be of assistance: ‘Adrian Carrasco speaking, how can I help you?’ After finding out the nature of the enquiry, you can say ‘Certainly, can I just get your name and number before we begin?’
In the last example, after you have offered to help, the relationship has got off to a positive start and it is only reasonable and appropriate to request these details. You make it clear that you need these details ‘before we begin’. The caller now expects to provide the required details.
It is important in a service business to offer help immediately. Remember your business philosophy: this is a service business and you are there to help.

Making the appointment

Any person who has phoned about a specific property is a partly qualified enquiry since they are motivated enough to phone in the first place. Fully qualifying a buyer (or tenant) is usually a lengthier process that requires more questions and some empathy on the part of the agent. This is not possible in the limited time that is available in the first call.

But for now, the most important thing is to make the appointment to show the property. There will be time enough for the agent to fully qualify the prospect once they meet in person during the showing.

Sounding busy

Vince Berger, Sales manager / There is a technique I use to give clients the impression I am a busy operator. When I make the actual appointment, I take a proactive stance—for example:
‘Yes, I’d be happy to show you the property, I have time tomorrow at 12.30 or again at 3 p.m. Which suits you?’ Offering such narrow appointment times allows me to plan my busy day precisely, but more importantly, gives the favourable impression that the rest of my day is taken up with activities, which it always is, anyway.
Obviously, since it’s so important to make that appointment, I do everything possible to negotiate a meeting with the caller, even if it is at a less convenient time.

Other phone-in considerations

In general, you should always:

• keep the tone of your voice bright and cheerful, and remember to speak clearly and not too quickly
• be friendly
• think about what you are going to say before you say it
• sound as though you mean what you are saying
• keep a pen and paper (or diary) handy to record initial details
• employ active listening techniques, and reflect the main points that the caller has made back to him or her
• check periodically that you have the facts right and summarise key points
• make notes of key points and check important details, for example: ‘So the phone number you have given me is 9997 2722. Is that correct?’
• record and pass on messages promptly.

Walk-ins

Most of the principles that apply to phone-ins apply to walk-ins as well, with one fundamental difference: You are meeting the enquirer face-to-face and you can observe each other’s body language.

Just as with a phone enquiry, the agent handling a walk-in enquiry has three basic goals:

• to record the enquirer’s name
• to obtain his or her phone number, and
• to arrange an appointment.

Getting a name and number

Getting a name and number is easier when you meet prospects face-to-face than when they phone in. When you first greet them, if you offer your name and a smile, you’ll find that usually they’ll offer theirs in return.

You can use other prompts, for example the buyer enquiry sheet and the Open For Inspection Register, to gather prospects’ names and numbers. Both documents are used for recording a new enquiry. Enquirers can see you writing on one of these documents and will usually respond with their details as you ask them, and watch you fill them in.

Adrian Carrasco, Sales Consultant / When dealing with prospects face-to-face, I find that recording names electronically (eg in my PDA, laptop or any other database device) tends to make the prospects nervous. Vince has suggested this is because customers have an inbuilt mistrust of seeing their personal details recorded on account of being unsure where these details might end up or how they might be used. I agree! I can’t stand being phoned by telemarketers or spammed by irrelevant junk mail.
I find it’s better to hand-write a prospect’s contact details on a call sheet or in a contact log while I’m in front of them and then transcribe to the contacts database as soon as I can afterwards.

After recording the buyer’s name, make sure that you use it. This is for two main reasons. First, the more times you use it, the easier it is to remember it. But more important is that, by using the client’s name frequently, you are establishing a closer relationship with them.

When you ask prospects for a phone number, it’s always good to follow up with:

‘… so that I can call you in the future with anything that might suit.’

By offering that service to them, they can hardly refuse to give you their phone number in return. You are only going to use it to help them, after all!

Many prospects complain that they never get a follow-up call once they’ve given their contact details. If you ask enquirers for their contact details, you must follow up. Even if there is no new property to tell them about, it is still important to stay in touch, to see if their needs may have changed.

The first appointment

Adrian Carrasco, Sales Consultant / I usually find that enquirers who make the effort to actually come into the office are more likely to be genuine and motivated.
When the prospect comes to the office, Jackie greets them and brings them to my desk or maybe to a meeting room, if the office is busy. If I think the meeting will take some time, I usually offer coffee or tea. Then I move to recording details, qualifying the enquirer and suggesting properties to inspect.
If you meet prospects at an open house you have advertised, then you are already having your first appointment with them. Although you may have a lot of things to do —like dealing with a number of prospects at the same time—try to answer any questions they might have.
At the end of their inspection, I always ask them what they think about the property. Do they like it enough to buy or rent it? If they don’t, I ask for their feedback. This helps narrow down what they don’t like. This will be useful when I am looking for other properties to show them. It’s also helpful when I’m giving feedback to the vendor.
I always close with buyers or tenants by promising that I’ll help them further. For example, I offer to phone them with details of other properties that might suit them, or if I know of a suitable property, I say that I’ll call them to make an appointment to view it.
I think it’s fine to end the contact at that point – anyway there are usually plenty of people waiting to ask me something. I think the key is to be brief and businesslike but never impatient. But always, if I arrange to call a prospect, I make sure that I actually do it.

Time wasters

It is important to qualify how likely to buy or ‘hot’ a prospective customer may be. This saves you from spending too much of your precious time with prospective buyers or renters who are not ready, willing and immediately able to proceed. For example, they will obviously not be ready if they must sell another property before they can commit to this one.