13 Tips for Real Estate Customer Service (+5 companies)

Real Estate Customer Service

Real estate customer service is pivotal in ensuring client satisfaction and fostering long-term relationships in the industry. 

According to statistics, 32% of customers would stop interacting with a brand they love after a singular bad experience. Furthermore, after multiple bad experiences, 45% of customers would walk away and change, regardless of brand loyalty. 

Therefore, providing exemplary service not only enhances the buying or selling experience but also boosts reputation and referrals. To excel in this aspect of the business, here are 13 invaluable tips for optimizing real estate customer service.

13 Tips for Real Estate Customer Service

Tip 1: Proactive Communication

According to one study, only 11% of people feel they can completely trust a real estate agent, highlighting the importance of establishing trust through effective communication.

For smooth real estate transactions, it’s crucial to communicate proactively with clients. This means promptly sharing any significant news, whether good or bad, to avoid feelings of distrust. This can be done by scheduling weekly check-ins during active projects to keep clients informed and allow them to ask questions regularly.

Real Estate Customer Service

Tip 2: Try to show some empathy

In customer service, empathy is crucial, you need to be understanding and appreciate the feelings of others. In real estate customer service, it’s essential to connect with clients emotionally. Ask them how they’re feeling and listen to their answers. This helps them express themselves and lets you see things from their perspective.

When they share concerns or questions, respond empathetically. You can show that you understand what they’re going through and build trust to strengthen your relationship with them.

Tip 3: Clear, Transparent Communication

Understanding clients’ needs is crucial for delivering excellent customer service in real estate. Without a clear grasp of what clients truly want, it becomes challenging to meet their expectations effectively. Thus, emphasizing transparency becomes essential. 

Agents encourage reciprocal openness by being open and honest with clients, fostering stronger relationships based on trust and mutual understanding. Research indicates that transparency not only improves relationships in the long run but also empowers clients to make informed decisions.

Furthermore, promoting transparency can empower clients to access information independently, such as through blogs or knowledge bases. In today’s digital age, where buyers are increasingly well-informed, providing comprehensive resources demonstrates a commitment to honesty and a desire to help clients navigate the real estate process confidently. 

Additionally, speaking plainly and avoiding jargon is crucial in this regard. Being transparent about pricing, market conditions, and potential challenges helps to build trust and ensures clients feel fully informed throughout their real estate journey.

Tip 4: Interview Your Clients

The next point in real estate customer service tips is to interview your clients for a better understanding. By asking relevant questions and listening attentively, agents can gather valuable insights to tailor their services effectively. 

For instance, understanding whether a client is a first-time buyer or an experienced homeowner guides the direction of subsequent inquiries. 

It’s advisable to organize and store client information for current and future reference. Additionally, crafting a refined set of questions, customized for different buyer types, proves beneficial. 

Utilizing a mix of open- and closed-ended questions helps gather comprehensive information and clarity on specific subjects. Furthermore, with client consent, recording conversations provides a thorough record and enables agents to maintain focus on the client during discussions.

Tip 5: Practice active listening

It’s important to remember that hearing and understanding are not the same. Simply hearing someone speak doesn’t guarantee comprehension. To truly grasp their message, one must engage in active listening.

This means giving the speaker your full attention and being present in the moment. Also, eliminate distractions, such as turning off your phone or moving away from your computer screen. By doing so, you can fully focus on what the speaker is saying without being tempted to multitask.

Remember, active listening is a talent that gets better with practice. Don’t expect perfection immediately, but strive to continually enhance your ability to listen attentively and understand your client’s needs effectively.

Tip 6: Implement an Auto-Responder

Half of customers expect a reply within an hour, and nearly one-fifth want an immediate response to their questions or complaints. Thus, you can use an autoresponder to manage client inquiries effectively, especially considering the high stakes and time constraints often involved in real estate transactions. 

Meeting with clients outside standard business hours is common practice, requiring finesse to balance responsibilities and avoid burnout.

Since clients expect prompt responses, an autoresponder can be a valuable tool to acknowledge inquiries quickly. While it may not address nuanced issues, it can provide immediate information or set expectations for when a detailed response will be provided. 

Tip 7: Anticipate the wishes and needs of your client

When you meet a client’s needs before they’re even voiced, it communicates a genuine concern for their individuality. Achieving this level of service entails aligning both your team and systems to predict client desires proactively. 

This involves hiring staff with client-friendly traits like warmth, empathy, teamwork, conscientiousness, and optimism, as well as tailoring systems to focus on fulfilling client expectations. Treating every client uniquely rather than with a one-size-fits-all approach is essential for delivering exceptional service. 

According to realtor Carl Sussman, anticipating client needs prevents them from feeling overlooked or uninformed, fostering a sense of care and loyalty in the client-agent relationship.

Tip 8: Try rotating schedules

You can try implementing rotating schedules to manage real estate interactions that occur during non-standard hours. This ensures that no one is consistently burdened with working nights and weekends. 

Teams can assign members to work on Saturdays or Sundays on a rotating basis, helping to balance workload and staffing needs effectively. Additionally, creating multiple shifts allows for coverage of different hours, and surveying staff preferences can inform scheduling decisions to streamline the process.

Tip 9: Build a network of intermediaries

To excel in real estate best practices and effectively navigate the role of intermediary in transactions, you need to build a strong network of professionals. 

While it’s impractical to become an expert in every aspect of real estate, setting clients up for success involves connecting them with reliable experts in various disciplines. Industry networking events and seeking recommendations from seasoned professionals are effective ways to establish these connections. 

However, it’s crucial to thoroughly vet any individuals you bring into your network to ensure they maintain high standards of quality and professionalism, thereby safeguarding your reputation and the trust of your clients.

Tip 10: Learn from your network

While providing great customer service in real estate, forming strong connections helps both clients and your team to learn and grow. Interviewing professionals and shadowing them can deepen your understanding of their work and improve the client experience for referrals.

It’s important to recognize when to defer to an expert and be honest when you lack knowledge. Prioritizing accuracy over speed ensures the best information for clients. By focusing on obtaining comprehensive information, you’ll navigate real estate practices effectively.

Tip 11: Avoid convincing. Be a consultant first.

Unlike hard selling, which prioritizes the interests of the salesperson or company, a ‘consultant approach’ focuses on understanding and addressing the client’s needs and goals.  

This begins with interviewing the client to determine if your services align with their needs, acting as an advisor to find the best solution. Additionally, staying with the client throughout the entire process builds stability and reinforces trust. While being a consultant requires more effort, it leads to long-term success and client satisfaction.

Tip 12: Harmonize Sales and Service Objectives

Aligning sales and real estate customer service goals is crucial for maximizing efficiency and fostering long-term success. While salespeople are driven to close deals, providing exceptional service can significantly enhance the customer experience and ultimately contribute to business growth. 

To mitigate potential tensions between these objectives, sales leaders must explore strategies to align them effectively. This may include incentivizing ongoing client relationships, such as compensating for expansion revenue or rewarding client loyalty through bonuses for lease renewals or referrals. 

Tip 13: Always follow up

Another important aspect of enhancing real estate customer service involves following up. This entails reaching out to clients after each interaction, whether through sending a thank-you note, making a follow-up call, or arranging an in-person meeting to discuss their experience.

Such follow-up actions demonstrate to clients that their satisfaction matters to you and that you are committed to their success.

These are only a few tips for improving real estate customer service. However, if maintaining and training an in-house support team is too much of a hassle, you can outsource real estate customer service. For this, we have curated a list of the top companies you can consider for customer service in property management.

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Top 5 Companies to Outsource Real Estate Customer Service!

Below is our curated list of the top 5 companies you can consider for outsourcing your real estate customer service: 

1) Helplama

Real Estate Customer Service

Rating: 5/5

Pricing: Plans begin at $399/month.

Helplama focuses on helping small businesses with their customer service needs. They offer customized solutions and have a network of local support agents worldwide who are experts in their field. This ensures transparency in the support process.

Key Features

    • US-based Customer Support: Ensures communication consistency with agents located in the US, minimizing language and cultural barriers.
    • Dedicated Support for Small Businesses: Tailored customer service solutions designed specifically for the needs and requirements of small businesses.
    • Pay-As-You-Go Answering Service: Flexible pricing model based on call volume, allowing businesses to pay only for the support they need, starting as low as 70 cents per minute.
    • Help Desk Support Outsourcing: Offers assistance with technical troubleshooting and provides real-time support to address customer inquiries and concerns.
    • Global Network: Access to a vast network of local agents worldwide, ensuring businesses can find agents with relevant expertise regardless of their location.
    • Transparent Agent Allocation: Clear and transparent procedures for assigning agents to clients, ensuring businesses have visibility into the allocation process for optimal support delivery.

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2) ShoreAgents

Rating: 5/5

Pricing: Custom

Shore Agents offers a personalized approach to outsourcing solutions, starting with an initial consultation where their success team delves into your business needs and objectives. 

Key Features

    • Book an Initial Consultation: Begin your journey with a personalized meeting to discuss your business needs and objectives.
    • Talent Scouting & Linking: Candidates are sourced using multiple methods, including job sites, social media, and referrals, with each candidate thoroughly vetted to match your requirements.
    • Interview Shortlisted Candidates: Engage in interviews with pre-screened candidates to find the perfect fit for your business, with support from the success team throughout the selection process.
    • Onboarding & Integration: Structured onboarding process for smooth integration of new team members into your business culture, with ongoing support provided.
    • Diverse Roles: You can hire people for a variety of roles such as real estate sales assistant, loan processor, mortgage underwriter, escrow officer, sales administrator coordinator, etc. 

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3) MattsenKumar

Real Estate Customer Service

Rating: 4.2/5

Pricing: Contact their team to know more.

Mattsen Kumar (MK) specializes in providing 24/7 customer support services, ensuring prompt resolution of customer queries to enhance the overall customer experience. 

Key Features

    • 24/7 Customer Support: Agents deployed round-the-clock to address customer queries promptly, promoting a customer-centric approach.
    • Scalability: Tailored transaction processing services adaptable to clients’ exact requirements, including order processing and claims processing, with no extra costs.
    • Reliable Technology & Robust Security: Best-in-class technical support and stringent security measures to safeguard client data.
    • Affordable Multi-channel Support: Cost-effective multi-channel support across phone, email, and live chat.

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4) Invensis

Rating: 4.9/5

Invensis specializes in providing comprehensive real estate customer service outsourcing solutions to streamline various aspects of real estate operations.

Key Features

    • REO Listing Management: A dedicated team ensures timely updates and listing of REO properties, facilitating swift market placement and sales at competitive prices.
    • Real Estate Finance and Accounting: Utilization of cloud-based software and integrated tools for precise monitoring of expenditures, profits, and losses.
    • Real Estate Customer Support: Multilingual professionals with a customer service mindset adept at multitasking and resolving issues promptly.
    • Real Estate Data Creation: Creation of comprehensive datasets to provide insights on accessibility and opportunities.
    • Real Estate Data Entry: Expert handling of data entry tasks including property deeds, taxation records, legal documents, and sales records.

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5) PCBS 

Real Estate Customer Service

Pricing: Personalized

PCBS Global (PGBS) specializes in delivering professional real estate customer service. Their qualified executives handle customer queries effectively, enabling businesses to establish a high standard of customer service and build customer loyalty. 

Key Features

    • Inbound and Outbound Support: Expert assistance in handling both inbound and outbound customer interactions.
    • Email Management and IVR Service: Efficient management of email communications and implementation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems.
    • Cold Calling: Hire skilled cold callers to engage in outbound customer communication and generate interest.
    • Multilingual Customer Support: Ability to provide customer support in multiple languages.
    • Technology-Driven Solutions: Integration of advanced technological elements such as automatic call distribution, dialer systems, IVR, and reporting engines.

In Summary

In conclusion, implementing effective customer service in real estate is important for success in the real estate industry. By implementing real estate best practices listed above, you can build trust and loyalty with clients. 

Take your time to go through each point and include them in your plans. Additionally, you can consider outsourcing solutions from reputable companies like Helplama, Shore Agents, Mattsen Kumar, Invensis, and PCBS Global to enhance your customer service in real estate. 

Although all the companies listed above are the best, we recommend exploring the services of Helplama for a risk-free experience. Helplama offers professionals with domain expertise and guarantees 100% reimbursement if you’re not satisfied with their services.

So, what are you waiting for? Click here to calculate the cost and begin your real estate customer service outsourcing journey now!