Monday, February 19, 2018

Phone Followup You Will Want to Do

Hey all,

If you are following my approach to a first call with your leads, you have had a great first contact with your lead and you have

  1. Made them like you
  2. Setup future followup calls

Now it may seem that you are "in" with the customer at this point, but bringing a customer from phase 1 into phase 2 is an art unto itself.

Let's return to the story of buying a winter coat that we talked about in our training on the real estate buying cycle.

Imagine walking into a store to buy a winter coat.

The sales clerk approaches you and asks "Can I help you with anything today?".

You reply "No thanks, I am just looking."

Then you start to gather information, looking around the store and different styles and prices.

Eventually you found the perfect jacket, but can't find the right size on the floor.

You look around for that nice sales clerk who introduced themself to you when you walked in.

Unfortunately, they are nowhere to be found so you grab the next nearest sales clerk and ask them to help you.

Perfect! They found your size and begin to ring you up.

That's a great scenario for the customer. For the initial sales clerk, not so much. They missed out on a sale that was theirs for the taking.

Customer loyalty only extends so far

In real estate we often make the same mistake as the initial sales clerk.

We make a great connection with the customer and really provide value through our site.

Then, we are nowhere to be found when the customer begins the home search process some weeks later all while expressing shock and anger when you check back in finding the customer to be working with your competitor.

What happened?

Remember that 74% of buyers and 76% of sellers ultimately work with the first agent they come into contact with.

For us to rely on those statistics, we have to make a great first contact and then "be around" when the customer moves into phase 2.

This is where good phone follow-up comes in.

The average online customer is in phase 1 of the buying cycle and is between 3-6 months out from closing.

That customer needs at least 2 touches per week.

If you set them up for the automated search emails, that can count as 1 of your touches.

So you will also need another phone touch each week.

If good follow-up is akin to being a sales clerk within arm's reach of a customer, then you don't have to gradually increase the pressure on these calls.

In fact, I only have 2 rules for my follow-up calls.

  1. Always bring valuable information to the table (No "just checking in" calls).
  2. Keep it short and sweet (Don't build the expectation that every time they answer it will be 20 minutes on the phone).

You will have quite a bit of freedom within that framework, but I will share some common follow-up ideas that we use. You can find our customizable follow-up scripts at RECallScripts.com.

Week 1

     Hi this is [Name] with [Company]. We spoke last week and I set you up to receive listings via email and I just wanted to check in and make sure you were getting those emails.

Yes.

     Great. Well, if you need anything else, feel free to call me. Thanks.

Week 2

     Hi this is [Name]. I know you have been getting homes sent to you for a couple of weeks now and I just wanted to make sure we weren't wasting your time. Are we in the ballpark? Do we need to make any tweaks?

The customer has now had a few weeks to review the homes on the market and see what is outther. They will often reply with something like "Well, actually we don't want to live in X neighborhood. Can you remove those homes?"

     Sure thing. Let us know if we can help with anything else.

Week 3

     Hi this is [Name]. How'd those changes we made last week work out? Are we getting closer? Any other tweaks I can make?

Again, we are using the automated search as the basis for our followup. They will usually say "Sure. We actually want to expand our budget a bit. Can we open that up a little?"

     Perfect. No problem. I will go ahead and make the changes for you.

Week 4

     Hey, I just finished updating our market stats on my website and it looks like the price range you are looking at appreciated ___% in this market. Anyways, I thought you might be interested and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind me shooting you the stats via email?

More information. Use this opportunity to connect with the customer. They always say "Ok. Go ahead and send it."

     No problem. It's on its way. Have a great day.

Week 5

     Hi. This is [Name]. I know we have been talking for a while and it occurred to me that you may not have seen the mortgage calculator on my site. It's a great way to get some initial parameters for what you can afford. Have you tried it out yet?

Time to talk financing while still framing it as helping them with more information. They usually say "No"

     Well, let me go ahead and shoot you an email with a direct link. While I'm at it, I can actually do you one better. I have a partnership with a local mortgage broker and I can send you his website. You can actually get pre-qualified there and then know exactly what you can afford.

Sure. That sounds ok.

   Awesome. I'll go ahead and shoot it over to you. Let me know if you have any questions.

By now you are beginning to get the idea and you can plug in any great information in your follow-up exchanges.

The primary goal is to use the information as the reason to connect with the customer on a personal level, not to disseminate the information by itself.

Often this type of follow-up transitions naturally into an agent relationship over time.

Other times, you may have to force the issue as the customer moves along in the buying cycle.

We will cover a simple technique that works every time to do just that in tomorrow's email. Stay tuned.

All the best,

Levi Jones

 

PS. This type of follow-up only works if you have the right tools and training to generate a steady supply of leads.

Our agents generate 2-3 leads per day without spending extra on advertising.

Check to see if we have availability in your market.

If we do, you can get started at as little as $99 per month. No contracts. No setup fees. Really. 

Guerilla Realty
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