Don't Believe Your Hype - The Importance Of Mystery Shopping!

Providing first-rate customer service is key to your business. But how well does your estate agency rate? Have you tested your customer experience first hand? Agents who want to survive and thrive recognise the need to research their 'customers' experiences' to ensure a positive business relationship, discover missed sales opportunities, and to gain an edge over competitors. Did you know that around 90% of customers don't complain when they receive a poor service? They simply shop elsewhere. I think mystery shopping be the ideal way to see your business through the eyes of the customer?

Prepare to put your business under the microscope - If you ask any successful agent they will tell you that their achievement is down to a number of key factors; excellent customer service, communication and reliability are always top of the list. After all, the UK is a service oriented country and Estate Agents are no exception to this. An agent who knows what their buyers want, why a vendor is selling and well priced stock in my experience, always move in the right direction.

To get a true picture of your business you've got to know what really happens on the shop floor. Do viewings get followed up, feedback recorded and reported back to vendors? Are your staff dealing with customers in a professional friendly manor? Do you provide an environment in which exceptional customer service can thrive?

So where do you start? Register with one of your offices and see how long it takes for a call back, how quickly a phone is picked up, how accurately a property is described in brochure and website details.

This is a great opportunity to identify weakness in your current processes, ask your self, are you using the right technology to enhance your business? Do your staff have the resources to enhance your customer's experience? This is also an excellent way for you to evaluate your staff - their attitude, product knowledge, and most importantly the over all customer experience. The results can be used to make informed changes for the better, enabling you to improve your service and boost your sales.

"Since using dezrez the feedback from our customers has been excellent particularly with regards to our communication whether it be via phone, SMS text, email or via the vendor marketing reports. We have yet to have a viewer not turn up and we think this is very much down to the fact that we confirm every viewing via SMS or email."
Steve Wiggins, Bond Residential

I decided to conduct my own mystery shopping experiment and registered with one of the most widely known estate agents in the South West. With a success of 23 branches across the region and 40 years experience in house sales, I registered with four of their branches to see what sort of response I would get. I registered as a cash buyer with £190,000 to invest. These types of customers are like 'gold' in the current climate. Did I get a call back? Was the agent able to tell me who dealt with my call, how long it took to respond in each instance? Was the agent able to determine which properties I was offered and in what format? As a buyer with £190,000 to invest, did I get offered a mortgage appointment? Did they take my email address? Unfortunately the answer to most of the questions never came. In fact when this was pointed out to management I was simply told they would need to 'look into it'.

My advice would be that it's never too late to learn new tricks. Having systems in place to ensure that your clients are dealt with effectively is so important in modern estate agencies. Your clients should be entering a closed loop, where you can track every interaction between you and them! With software such as dezrez estate agency software, the above can be achieved and reported upon giving full accountability to all staff members in your agency. Dezrez estate agency software allows an agent to efficiently manage their clients and facilitate great customer service. It provides up to the minute marketing for buyers and comprehensive property reports for the agent and their vendors. Information is transparent allowing vendors to be kept up to date with their property's sale in real time, something which is key to great customer service and vital at the moment.

One of the biggest source of leads to today's estate agent is their website. It's the new shop front. Here are a few questions to ask yourself, is your site as effective as it could be? Are your leads dealt with in real time? Are you making the most of each site visitor? Is their experience a positive one? They are after all potential leads. Register on your own site and see if you get a response? Dezrez estate agency software certainly enables you to make the most of your website and ensures the visitors experience is a positive one!

Having learnt a great deal about what a customer will place value on whilst working on this report the key question for any estate agent should most certainly be, "how does your customer service compare to our competition down the road?" Getting an insight into your own customer service will help you improve your sales, maximise your customer's satisfaction and incentivise your staff and grow your business. Here's a thought to take away "If we don't take care of our customers, someone else will".

Dezrez is a major supplier of online estate agent software to the UK and European market. Dezrez have been at the forefront of estate agency software for 10 years and have won prestigious awards including the Deloitte Fast 50 and Orange National Business Awards.