Dealing with clients is a part of the real estate business. As professional services oriented industry, customer care can make or break a real estate business. However, as a real estate agent, you may also encounter people who are difficult to work with.
New buyers and sellers, people not committed to selling their property, people upset about falling property prices and more can be dissatisfied with you. Even if it isn’t your fault, as the real estate agent dealing with them at the point of time, you may become the person they vent towards.
Knowing how to deal with such clients is a part of the real estate business. Here are five strategies that can real estate businesses deal with unsatisfied clients:
- Pre-Screen Your Clients
The best way to avoid dealing with unsatisfied clients is to not work with them. While this isn’t applicable for most of the clients that come to a real estate business, you may occasionally come across clients who you can’t satisfy.
The pre-screening procedure tests for this client-realtor match. Do you offer the services your client needs? Can you help them sell, buy or invest in property? Do they have realistic expectations about the process?
Understanding what your client wants, as well as what you can offer to your client can make the difference later on. At the same time, you can also inform your potential client on what services you can offer, and on how well you can assist them.
- Listen to Your Clients
If a client has approached you and seems angry or aggressive, then staying calm and listening to them calmly is the best course of action. A lot of the times, the client simply wants their issues to be heard. Acknowledging their problems can help them feel as if they’re being heard.
Take the case of falling property values. This isn’t always in the control of the real estate business, but it can be understandable why they feel that way. Listening to their issues, and trying to approach them solutions to their problems can help alleviate their emotions.
- Be Transparent About the Industry
Often, the reason behind why people are dissatisfied with a real estate business is because they don’t understand the industry. This especially applies to new buyers and sellers, or clients working with a real estate business for the first time.
In such scenarios, being as transparent as you can be about the industry can help you deal with the unsatisfied client. From why the prices are what they are, to what increases or decreases a property’s value, transparency is key.
In this way, you are not only helping the client to understand your position as a real estate agent, but you’re also informing them about the industry. This makes them feel included in the process, and gives them the ability to make informed choices as well.
- Expect Emotional Outbursts
Most people don’t deal with property on a daily basis. Usually, people buy a big or small property only a few times in their lives. While they’re buying or selling their property however, emotional outbursts can be common. Anger, tears or just generally feeling down are experiences many people go through when buying or selling property.
Someone selling a property that was in their family for many years could feel emotional about selling it. Meanwhile, someone buying a property for the first time, or losing out on the property to another buyer could have an emotional reaction as well.
As a real estate agent, you may get to see all kinds of emotional reactions from people. From happy outbursts from getting the keys to a new home, to sadness from having to leave a property forever. Knowing that these emotional reactions may occur can help you prepare yourself mentally for both positive and negative emotional reactions.
In response to any of these situations, an empathetic response is always ideal. Especially when you’re dealing with a client whose struggling or unhappy, being empathic can help them feel understood and improve the situation.
- Stay Calm and Professional
Being calm, even if an unsatisfied client is being rude to you is necessary. Irrespective of how the client reacts, the real estate business is a professional services oriented industry. And that means that being professional at all times is absolutely crucial.
Staying calm is not only key to helping the client to calm down as well, but it’s also necessary to find actionable solutions. At the end of the day, if the client has a real problem, then finding solutions to those issues is of primary importance.
After dealing with your clients, you can consider adding value to your service. This doesn’t have to be in the form of monetary compensation, but can include other services as well. It’s mainly a way of making the client feel valued and inspire them to return to your real estate business in the future.
Conclusion
From pre-screening clients before working with them to being empathetic and informative while dealing with them, there are various things you can do to deal with an unsatisfied client. Staying calm and addressing your client’s issues is necessary for real estate businesses, especially with the potential for lawsuits from clients.
You can also consider getting business insurance for real estate businesses. That way if an unsatisfied client does sue your business, your insurance will provide financial coverage for the legal proceedings. It can even cover settlement costs up to the point noted in the policy.
