Sonia Krishnan
November 2, 2018
3 Minute Read
Premier Agent Kristen Pell once had a client who gave her a crucial piece of feedback.
“Please call me instead of texting me,” the client said, then admitted something Kristen never expected. “I can’t read that well.”
Suddenly, Kristen said, a light bulb went off. She’d been texting clients for years because she assumed most people didn’t like phone calls. But after that feedback, she said, she assumed less and asked more.
“(Learning) that was really important for me,” Kristen said. “Every single buyer and seller has a completely different personality and wants a completely different experience.”
This is the challenge agents are up against: how to make customers happy when expectations are varied and ever-shifting. Kristen, for instance, considers herself lucky that her client spoke up. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable voicing their needs, she said, even when you do your due diligence and ask all the right questions.
Indeed, understanding how to make customers happy can make agents feel like they’re reading tea leaves. Without access to data-driven insights, it can seem impossible to know which actions drive great customer experiences — and which don’t.
Premier Agent is launching a solution to bring agents more visibility into how to meet customer demands and create top-of-the-line experiences.
Called Best of Zillow, this program is designed to help Premier Agents build a brand known for providing superior customer service and stand out in a crowded real estate landscape.
Best of Zillow offers access to private feedback from your connections, as well as resources to help you grow your brand and differentiate yourself in the market.
Here’s how it’ll work. You’ll get:
Data from Zillow Group's Consumer Housing Trends Report 2018 shows that the top three characteristics buyers want in an agent are trustworthiness, responsiveness and knowledge of local neighborhoods.
The Best of Zillow program allows you to go far deeper into understanding buyers’ needs. Customers get surveyed at various stages of your relationship: the day after you connect, 15 days later and 45 days later. Customers rate their experience with you, and the data is anonymized to ensure candid feedback. You then receive these ratings in the form of easy-to-understand data to track your performance.
Not only will you understand how customers describe their experience working with you, you will also get visibility into where you’re excelling and where you have opportunities for growth. The goal is to arm you with actionable insights so you can build a leading, customer-centric brand in your market.
This intelligence is especially crucial to surviving in today’s on-demand world, where customers expect seamless buying experiences.
“I see feedback as critical,” said Premier Agent James Frank, who is based in Chicago. “I actually look forward to knowing what I’m doing wrong. If I’m doing something wrong, I need to fix that immediately.”
“A client is trusting you with the most expensive transaction they will ever make,” he added. “I take that seriously. I always want to improve my processes.”
Kristen, who works in Southwest Florida, agreed.
“A lot of people don’t want feedback because they don’t want to hear the truth,” she said. “But sometimes, negative feedback — when you get it early enough — can breed a stronger relationship between you and the customer. If they have a great experience, they will remember it, and they will tell someone.
“Nobody remembers a mediocre experience.”
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