Real Estate Client Management

One of the most popular topics in the industry is how to get clients in real estate. However, an often neglected follow-up topic is how to handle clients after you’ve secured them. 

This is why realtors need to explore real estate client management.

As with balancing any other type of personal relationship, real estate agents know that managing client expectations is critical to long-term success.

Sellers may expect you to turn their property overnight at an unreasonably high sales price; buyers may think you can find them a home on Day One that has every single quality they want at a rock bottom price.

Unrealistic? Maybe. But if getting positive referrals are an important element of your business model, you’ll have to learn how to manage client expectations on the front end of the relationship.

Today, we’ll cover how real estate client management services can ensure buyers and sellers walk away with realistic expectations. 

Managing Real Estate Client Expectations

• Educate clients about the market. The first thing you do is give your new clients a primer on the market. Through real estate client management, you ensure clients are making informed decisions. Make sure they have a basic understanding of current interest rates, prices, and the status of inventory before you begin showing properties. If you take time at the beginning of the process to provide fundamental support and data, you can make your work infinitely easier. They don’t need enough knowledge to get a real estate license, but the best way to insulate yourself against misunderstandings is by providing a market overview.
• Honesty is the best policy. Trust must be established at the beginning of any relationship to create a long-lasting rapport. As tempting as it may be, don’t tell your clients what you think they want to hear: Tell them what they need to hear. However, if customers learn that you’ve been anything less than forthcoming, you may find that you’ve caused irreparable damage. Remember that honesty is always the better choice. You’ll build a stronger relationship and earn trust early by telling them tough truths.
• Stay in touch. The root of being successful is to establish how often a client wants to communicate. Do they want to talk daily? Do they only want to hear from you when you have an offer in hand? Know their preferences. You are also in your right to establish boundaries for communication early. Your clients should expect to hear from you frequently during the sales process, but you can limit your contact. This might mean you set your phone to ‘do not disturb’ between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m., for instance, should you have the occasional high-maintenance clients.
• Be an empathetic listener. Too often, many of us get so caught up in the transactional nature of our business we can forget how emotional buying and selling a home is to our clients. As professionals, we are skilled at managing the ups and downs of real estate but most buyers and sellers have little experience. Real estate client management isn’t only about educating your client. It’s also about managing yourself. Exercise great patience and listen more than you talk.
• Review roadblocks. Obstacles always crop up, and there’s rarely a transaction that doesn’t have some item go awry, whether small or big. Walk clients through every negative outcome that could realistically occur during the sales process, for there’s nothing worse than having someone tell you that you’d not amply prepared them. And, most of what goes wrong does so after a property is under contract, something clients need to know.

Start with each new client by following these tips and hit refresh periodically: To ensure you are meeting client expectations, check in regularly so they have the opportunity to bring issues to your attention. Regular consideration is the surest path to creating solid business relationships.

Of course, to manage a client’s expectations, you first need to FIND your clients. The process of finding clients begins with a solid lead generation strategy.  We’ve written extensively about various strategies in this blog. But we thought you might also find value in this excellent post by Tom Ferry: The Top 12 Lead Generation Sources For Real Estate Success.