Best Practices for Your Sales Center Staff

Successful selling involves building a relationship with the buyer, and that couldn’t be more crucial than when helping them find a home. Your sales center staff is often a home shopper’s first in-person exposure to your brand. And you want to make it a good one.

Here are 11 best practices for your sales center staff to use with buyers.

1. Use your name

When you first greet a prospective buyer, make eye contact, shake hands and introduce yourself. When people hear your name, their natural inclination is to say their name in return, and that’s a start.

2. Provide your best customer service

Sales center staff are there for the convenience of buyers, not the other way around. After you’ve made a great first impression and they’ve toured the model home, ask questions about what they liked or didn’t like and if they had all their questions answered.

3. Stay friendly

Although many first-time visitors to your sales center might only want to see your price sheet and tour the models, each buyer provides the opportunity — however brief — to offer your expertise and illustrate the value you bring to their search.

Even if a buyer interrupts your introduction to ask about any killer deals you currently offer, your purpose is to stay friendly and accessible. Most new home shoppers know they need your help, but they want to be the one to determine when and how they engage you.

4. Understand your buyer in advance

Knowing the needs, concerns and decision drivers of who considers new construction gives you an advantage with those buyers before they even step foot in your model home. To brush up on your target home shopper, download our New Construction Buyer Persona, developed from the New Construction Consumer Housing Trends Report 2018.

5. Focus on earning the buyer’s trust

Buying a home is a huge milestone, and home shoppers want to know you’re an expert at helping them achieve it. Earning the buyer’s trust is crucial to establishing a relationship with them.

• Engage them in a conversational manner, not a high-pressure sale presentation.
• Ask questions to find out who they are: hobbies, interests, pets, kids, family.
• Repeat and clarify what they said so they know you understand.
• If someone is accompanying them, include everyone in the dialogue (because you never know who their influencers are!).
• Take your time to be approachable, likeable and genuine.

6. Make it easy to get their information

If there are paper check-in forms (like this template) you’d like buyers to complete, have them ready with plenty of pens and counter space to make it quick and easy.

When using tablets to share or display information, make sure they’re sufficiently charged and booted up with your sites or images bookmarked and just a tap away.

Point out any email opt-in check boxes or disclaimers to reassure buyers that you won’t spam them.

7. Limit the lingo

You might think it saves time to ask a prospective buyer if they’re considering an FHA to BYOL, but it probably won’t save the conversation. Don’t use industry buzzwords and jargon. Use language that is approachable and easy for the general public to understand. Use our ABCs of New Construction as a guide to your conversation.

8. Let buyers take the lead

Don’t rush into a hard sell: Ask questions that direct the conversation, but allow buyers to set the pace as they tell you about their home needs and timeline.

9. Be consistent

It’s frustrating for visitors to get conflicting information from members of the same team. Make sure you’re all on the same page when talking to prospective buyers — whether that’s when discussing home features, community information or even the sales center hours.

10. Offer something in return

If a sales center visitor is a high-intent buyer, they would probably like to hear more about your homes and communities — especially if it’s exclusive or personalized for them. Follow up your conversation by offering to mail or email them a market data report, neighborhood overview or a guide on new construction home buying.

Don’t forget to mention any time-limited specials you have going on, and let them know you’d be happy to call or email when new offers become available.

11. Explain why you want their information

Most sales center visitors are willing to provide their contact information, but don’t push for it if you meet with resistance. Instead, let home shoppers know that collecting their information is a way to let them know about price changes, feature updates or anything going on with the homes or community that they might want to know. Using a templatized guest check-in form can help this process — and don’t forget to ask them how they heard about you!