Ways You Could Irk a Client as a Know-It-All

Ways You Could Irk a Client as a Know-It-All

“A great customer experience is one where customers feel good, even look good,” writes Forbes columnist Micah Solomon, a customer experience coach, trainer, and author. In the end, they’ll feel good about you then too.

Yet, too often sales professionals are so concerned with making sure they look smart to their customers that it comes at the price of making their customers feeling stupid.

Solomon highlights five things you’ll want to avoid in your talks with clients to make sure you aren’t hurting their self-esteem:

1. When a customer is wrong, try to avoid “schooling them” on the error. Instead, try to make the mistake seem like one that could have happened to anyone.

2. Avoid jargon that could be confusing to your customer. Translate your thoughts into language that the customer can easily understand.

3. Don’t go on and on … and on. Be respectful and value your customers’ time. Don’t drag out conversations in a way that seems disrespectful and make them feel like you think their time is less valuable than yours, Solomon writes.

4. Don’t let them feel like an interruption. Hold off on taking phone calls or responding to messages from other clients when you’re with someone else. Avoid making customers feel like they’re an interruption of your work, rather than central to it.

5. Don’t assume they know the process. Make sure you explain to them the process of home buying or selling in easy-to-use terms and steps so they know what’s coming next. “Feeling lost and frustrated by a counterintuitive customer experience doesn’t make anyone feel good about themselves,” Solomon notes.

Source: “The Customer Experience Is About Making Your Customer Look Good, Not Making Yourself Look Good,” Forbes.com (Oct. 16, 2016)

New Mortgage Applications Up 3% This Week

New Mortgage Applications Up 3% This Week

Even as rates were on the rise last week, mortgage application volume still managed to squeeze out a 0.6 percent increase on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports Wednesday. Total mortgage applications include those for refinancings and home purchases.

Mortgage applications are now 18.5 percent higher than a year ago, MBA reports. Broken out, mortgage applications for home purchases rose 3 percent compared to the previous week and are now 13 percent higher than the same week one year ago. Meanwhile, applications for refinancings dropped 1 percent from the previous week, but remain 22.4 higher than a year ago (when rates were slightly higher).

“Refinance applications dropped to the lowest level since the week of the Brexit vote, as mortgage rates reached their highest level since then,” says Michael Fratantoni, chief economist for the MBA.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to its highest level last week since June. It reached 3.73 percent last week, up from 3.68 percent the week prior, MBA reports. Lenders report that mortgage rates did start to inch lower at the beginning of this week, however.

Source: “Mortgage Applications Climb 0.6%; Rising Rates Don’t Scare Buyers,” CNBC (Oct. 19, 2016)

A Home Owners’ Biggest Fear

Home Owners’ Biggest Fear

Seventy-five percent of Americans say they are concerned about losing housing, according to a survey conducted by The NHP Foundation, a not-for-profit provider of affordable housing. Their concerns stem from a fear of losing a job, perceived lack of affordable options, rising rental costs, and retirement.

“Job loss is the top concern to those who fear losing their housing; the two go hand-in-hand,” says The NHP Foundation’s CEO Dick Burns.

About 1,000 Americans were polled and asked how concerned they or a friend or a relative were about losing housing: 30 percent of them said they were “very concerned,” 27 percent were “concerned,” and 19 percent were “somewhat concerned.” Eighty-three percent of those surveyed say that most of their concerns stem from housing costs.

Indeed, 65 percent of respondents say they feel “cost-burdened,” devoting more than 30 percent of their incomes to paying housing costs.

Eighty percent of respondents say they would welcome more affordable housing in their communities, while 20 percent said they would not.

For those who don’t, Burns believes it’s because of an “outdated concept of affordable housing.”

“Today’s affordable housing is comprised of new and upgraded garden apartments and high-rises; amenity-laden developments that look nothing like ‘projects’ of the past,” he says.

Source: The NHP Foundation

Stay Out of Your Clients’ Spam Folder

Stay Out of Your Clients’ Spam Folder

You know how annoying e-newsletters can be. They fill your inbox every day, and only a fraction of them are actually relevant to you. So imagine how your customers feel. If you’re using an e-newsletter to keep your clients and prospects informed of local real estate data or buying and selling tips, how can you make sure your message rises above the rest of the noise they hear every day? Forbes columnist William Arruda, founder of Reach Personal Branding and author of Ditch.Dare.Do! and Career Distinction, offers some of the following tips for staying out of your customers’ spam folder:

Deliver useful news. “Do your articles truly inform, or do they just state the obvious?” Arruda says. “Start keeping a list of every time you encounter a newsworthy triumph, industry change, surprising statistic, or upcoming event that would make for good content.”

Showcase your clients. Take the spotlight off you. Describe your clients’ recent success stories with buying or selling. “This is a great way to provide added value because you’re sharing exposure to your client base,” Arruda writes.

Be brief. Avoid long posts or white papers on your e-newsletter, Arruda writes. Instead, keep lengthier content to links only. A newsletter should be concise and contain short tidbits that allow readers to scan it in two minutes or less.

Maintain a frequency. Don’t be erratic in deploying your e-newsletter. Plan your release dates so your customers will come to expect it at a certain time. “Your goal should be for your e-newsletters to become a true treat — a welcome distraction for your clients to savor during a lunch break or a commute — that reinforces your positive brand traits,” Arruda notes. “The ultimate goal is for your readers to forward your insight to others.”

Source: “Is Your E-newsletter Hurting Your Brand?” Forbes.com (Oct. 6, 2016)

What Really Makes Sellers Want to Move

What Really Makes Sellers Want to Move

Home owners entering the market are motivated to sell desiring either an upgrade or a downsized home, finds a new survey conducted by realtor.com®. Home owners looking to move due to retirement or to lower their cost of living were the two biggest increases this year in realtor.com®’s survey revealing sellers’ top motivations.

“This is a good sign that more home owners may be motivated in the year ahead to sell their homes,” writes Jonathan Smoke, realtor.com®’s chief economist, in a recent column about inventory challenges plaguing markets. “A lack of inventory has been the biggest problem buyers faced for most of the past year.”

Indeed, in 2014, active inventory at realtor.com® totaled 2.1 million residential listings. In August of this year, however, active inventories have plummeted to 1.7 million active listings, a drop of more than 8 percent.

Realtor.com® recently identified the following top motivators for selling, including:

They want a different neighborhood: 42%
They need a bigger home: 21%
They need a home with different features: 21%
They need a smaller home: 19%
They want a location with better weather/view/lifestyle: 19%
They need to lower their cost of living: 19%
They are getting ready to retire or just retired: 15%
But even when home owners want to sell, they may not be able to. Home owners reported the top impediments to selling were their perception of having to make improvements to their home first and the concern over finding a new property to purchase before selling. Sellers expressed concern about the dearth of homes for sale that make it difficult to find a new home.

Source: “The Real Reasons Behind America’s Housing Inventory Dilemma,” realtor.com® (Oct. 6, 2016)