Property doctor: how to refocus a team

JULIAN SAYS: During my first week in estate agency in 1983, I attended a training course on how to refocus a team which covered the basic skills required for my new role as junior negotiator. Certain lessons have been firmly embedded in my brain throughout my career, particularly those relating to the qualification and registration of applicants.

The training course included a checklist of 22 elements that needed to be covered during that first point of contact, and we were advised that the company regularly ‘mystery shopped’ its offices to gauge the quality to which this key part of the job was being carried out. Having committed these checklist points to memory, I then ensured I dealt with every applicant every day on the premise that they might be the mystery shopper. After all, I was keen to do the job to the best possible standard and ensure that I made my mark on the company’s sales figures.

Nowadays, my training company conduct mystery shopper exercises for sales and lettings agents around the UK and the results are never less than fascinating. The original list of 22 key points, although many years old and slightly revised, still broadly forms the benchmark of how well these calls are handled, and the standard of follow up service delivered. The difference in quality between the best and worst is extraordinary. Feedback from proprietors, whether the calls and follow up are poor, fair, good or exceptional, is that the exercises are worth their weight in gold for illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the sales/letting operation within their businesses.

Most (but by no means all) agents will establish key contact information (names, initials and titles of all parties plus all telephone numbers and email addresses) and a general. However, the real areas for concern are the depth of information gleaned and the lack of testing of the answers provided by the customer.

It’s critical to design standards of applicant handling and monitor them.

A worryingly common approach is for agents to take only cursory information before offering to email a selection of potential properties. This is politely called the “mud at the wall” principle and is not recommended. Assuming that an agent is striving for exceptional standards of selling techniques to maximise results, it is alarming that many areas of key information are missed – the reason for and specific timescale of the proposed move, for example.

Much of the facts established are not clarified – “I’m looking up to around £230,000 for a three bedroom property” is not good enough! These points must be tested with probing questions like “So if I found you a property that had everything you are looking for, but only had two bedrooms, might you consider it?” and “If I found you the perfect property, what is the very maximum you would be prepared to pay for it?”. It is incredibly rare to hear these questions asked during our mystery shopper calls, yet they are the best way to establish ‘must-haves’ and the genuine top price to pay.

Similarly, when the applicant states that they have sold their property, the negotiators seldom dig deeply enough to find out the quality of that ‘sale’. The avoidance of establishing an applicant’s financial capability is also a regular shortcoming. This failure to check the detailed ability of the applicant will inevitably lead to missed opportunities by agents spending the wrong amount of time with the wrong people, or equally worryingly, failing to spot the real ‘money-making’ customers.

The checklist also covers the follow up service received in terms of the quality of information and response times, and what further communication takes place.

The above represent just a selection of the criteria that are measured by the mystery shoppers. A recent mystery shopper exercise saw a top score of 11 out of the possible 22 – the other offices involved scored less and in one case, only six! This was not a level of performance that would help sustain that business through the end of 2013 as well as a hard to predict 2014. Fortunately, the proprietor in question invested in training to ensure these problems were addressed. As part of that training, on an ongoing basis, normally at the end of a morning meeting, one or two incoming recorded Rightmove enquiries are played and checked against the standards checklist. This allows teams to review their own calls and assess whether they meet the agreed criteria. Of course,
the very fact that this regular checking mechanism is in place ups the standard of managing the calls!

It is critical to design and agree standards of applicant handling and to ensure all staff understand them, and are subsequently managed and monitored effectively to guarantee those standards are adhered to. You can come up with your own checklist but if you feel the aforementioned one would be of use to your company, do feel free to drop me a line at [email protected] and we will get one emailed to you. ●