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As a business owner or real estate agent, gaining customers loyalty, repeat business and referrals is crucial to your success.
Today, i will be giving you pro tips on how to make staying on their mind easy with a few simple steps.
The process of buying and selling a home is one that most people only do a few times in their lifetime, if at all. And even if your former customers buy or sell again, you might miss out on their repeat business for the simple reason that they don’t think of you as their dedicated agent.
Many people don’t realize that their relationship with their real estate agent should be considered as personal as their relationship with their doctor or financial advisor. Instead they treat it casually and pick any agent that just comes along.
They move from agent to agent for every new purchasing transaction.
Here are a few ways in which you can gain your customers loyalty, and stay on their mind long after the transaction.
Contents
1. Ask for Feedback
It’s likely that you already follow up with an email to ask your clients how things are going with their new home. After the transaction is done, you could also follow up with a more formalized survey from a service like surveymonkey. Most people love to give their opinion. They also like to feel helpful and like their input is being heard and valued. Email your clients a survey with direct and specific questions and a space for candid commentary.
Word your questions with a positive slant which also solicits more than a one word response. Most of the time yes or no answers don’t do much to give you valuable insight and they also bore the person taking the survey. If you really want results, give your clients a chance to express themselves!
Not only will you gain valuable feedback on what is working for you and where you can improve, you might also get usable testimonial quotes to post on your website, social media or use in your promotional materials.
2. Give More than just a Closing Gift
This is a practice that is most effective in real estate. Seal you customers loyalty by providing them with closing gifts after successfully buying or selling property on their behalf.
This notion of rewarding your client may seem odd, as no other industry really demonstrates this habit. It is not likely that your doctor, accountant, or lawyer will gift you after having utilized their services.
But the giving of these gifts serves two main purposes: one, and most importantly, it allows you to showcase your sincere and genuine appreciation for your client and secondly, as touched upon earlier, it is a subtle method that might potentially lead to generating referrals.
Now that the importance of closing gifts has been established, an important subsequent discussion should be what kind of gift would be most suitable to give.
Selecting a gift should be uniquely tailored to the profile and personality of each client. Don’t just have a stock of the same gifts for every customer that passes through your doors. Take time to select one. Do something unique for each one.
You can get them anything ranging from a celebratory dinner at a posh restaurant, to an appointment with a talented interior designer, or potted flowers, or even a painting of their new home.
Lastly, do not brand the gifts. A closing gift is about them, not you. Branding your gift makes your customers feel like advertising targets instead of people.
Also as a final addition, make sure you don’t give them a gift right after the closing.
Instead, wait at least a few days and your gift will seem more like a housewarming gift. My reasoning here is simple.
3. Maintain a personal connection
If you have already sent out follow-up surveys and given your clients gifts that will make them remember you each time they use it, you are already well ahead of the curve.
The next thing you can do to cement your customers loyalty is to follow them on social media. You may or may not be a social media user, but if you aren’t using it for your business, you could be missing out.
Connecting on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter will ensure that you can stay in touch. Some clients might even post that they are moving or looking for a new home. Don’t miss out on these updates.
Likewise, paper or electronic birthday cards, holiday greeting cards, and other forms of reaching out at significant times during the year can make a big impact.
You might even consider creating branded fridge stickers or a football calendar of the new season if the client is a football fan.
Of course these methods of reaching out take a bit more of a budget, but they can be very useful toward keeping you connected personally to your customers and prospects.
Final Conclusion
Stay in front of your clients with proactive moves and using the technology that is available to you, then sit back and enjoy the success as they return to you for business and send referrals your way.
Gaining one single customers loyalty is equivalent to getting 5 more customers.