What Do Your Customers REALLY Want?
What do your customers really want from you? I’d classify this as an important question for any business. And today, I got a glimpse of something from which most of us can probably extract a valuable lesson.
A friend of mine who runs a thriving angel investor group in Virginia recently set up an account on the business networking site, LinkedIn. (If you don’t have one, you should probably think about it.) The other day, she challenged me to a race to see who could build a bigger network. She’s killing me.
One of the features that LinkedIn now offers is the ability to post a question to the community. People answer publicly to establish credibility and domain expertise. So, as you might imagine, the answers tend to be thoughtful, well-articulated, and generally correct (or at least defensible).
Today someone asked the question, “what is your expectation of a Realtor?”
The question caught my attention, because I’ve been dealing with that topic today, and I happen to know the answer. Oddly enough, this is a very well researched question, and the answer is surprisingly clear.
So I was intrigued to peruse the musings of the consultants, sales gurus, and marketing geniuses. They included the following:
“Do what it takes to sell the home.”
“Use internet tools for marketing.”
“Price the house correctly.”
“Well advertised open houses.”
“Listen to my needs.”
“Drive me around. Unlock the door. And shut up.”
“Show me homes within my budget.”
“Help solve contract/inspection issues.”
“Price it right. Sell it fast.”
I’m sure most of us would agree with these. But interestingly enough, none of the answer people on LinkedIn got it right.
When choosing a Realtor, the number one variable that dictates the selection is response time (how quickly did the Realtor respond to my inquiry?). A close second is the prospective client’s perception of how responsive the Realtor would be through the life of the transaction.
As simple as this sounds, it turns out that the number one driver of client satisfaction with a Realtor at the end of the transaction is communication and responsiveness (how responsive was my Realtor to my communication needs through the course of the transaction?).
In residential real estate, timely, relevant, value-added communication is THE KEY to satisfying clients. This is what the customer really wants. And the research is very clear that EVERYTHING else is a distant second. As a Realtor, you can score perfectly on the LinkedIn list, but if you fail to communicate well (and responsively) with your clients, you have an unhappy customer that won’t use you again and certainly won’t refer you to others.
What an amazingly fundamental need we as home buyers have when it comes to our selection and satisfaction with a Realtor. And my strong suspicion is that this is in no way unique to home purchases – or even consumer transactions.
In medicine, it is well documented that malpractice suits have little to do with a doctor’s skills as a physician and mostly to do with his/her style of communication with patients. As patients, we want compassion and empathy. We want to be heard by our doctors, and how they communicate with us will determine our propensity to sue them if they screw something up.
I’ll bet that most of us would be shocked to discover how basic our customers’ greatest needs are. I’ll also bet that timely, relevant, value-added, compassionate, empathic communication is at (or darn near) the top of the list in most industries.
We marketers tend to over-think things at times. When it comes to the question of what your customers REALLY want. Start with the most basic needs related to communication.
customer satisfaction, referrals, Sales
