TEAMWORK LEADS TO GOOD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

I believe one step owners and managers can take to help their agents is to bring three top notch (world class) mortgage brokers into their office (one at a time) for a very detailed interview.

Let's face it, closings depend upon teamwork between an agent and a mortgage person.. Why not be proactive to find the very best mortgage people in your area to work with your agents... Let them compete for the business, but also create some loyalty with them. Often they have different specialties that are critical in getting deals to the closing table.

Good teamwork is not just closing the deal, but making sure the experience is topnotch and it takes coordinated effort to accomplish that. Good communication amongst the team and the client is crucial. Remember the attitude has to be "what is best for the client."

Arnie Goldberg, VP Loyalty Builder, LLC agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com

Janet Guilbault Article - OPPORTUNITY 2010

This is the best description of business employee attitude I have seen. Of course this is not all companies, like USAA, and Nordstrom where customer service is world class.

Quoted by Janet Guilbault:
In the so called "new economy" of 2009, business strategy revolved around this miserable mindset:

1. Let's fire everyone we can, cut the pay of those left (they're lucky to have a job, after all), then try to operate normally with one third of the staff.
2. Let customers figure it out. Send them to our website.
3. Let customers wait on hold forever or go straight to voice mail jail.
4. Let customers wait in line.
5. Let customers stand at the front desk and ring a bell if they expect service. We fired our receptionist months ago.
6. Heaven forbid we should pay anybody to talk to anybody! If they need support they can e-mail us.
7. Why should we be friendly or nice? We're in a recession after all.
8. Let's make our product worse to save money. Half the size, half the warranty, half the quality. No one will notice. If they do it will be too late.
9. Let's cut our hours, close locations, and turn down the heat.
10. If we absolutely need to hire someone, let's hire a part time employee, pay no health insurance, no benefits, and give them no training
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YOU CAN BUILD AND ATTRACT MORE BUSINESS BY THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS

Again quoted by Janet Guilbault

Simply make these resolutions:

1. I will grant customers the ability to talk to ME (not to my voicemail and not to my e-mail)
2. I will call them before they call me.
3. I will have live, face to face meetings with my customers whenever I can (what a concept!)
4. I will remember that a crabby customer needs my sympathy more than anything else.
5. I will go out of my way to show I genuinely care by asking directly what the customer wants and needs.
6. More than anything, I will cause my customers to believe they matter, and they are important.
7. I will never allow my customers to know I am feeling crabby, overworked, or underpaid.
8. I would rather have fewer customers that are lavished with attention than many customers who get no service, or poor service.
9. In a world where service is getting worse, mine will get better.
10. I will know my stuff.

TRULY UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMER

UNDERSTANDING what your customer expects from you as a service provider has become multi-faceted. It's not just enough to know the demographic profile of your customer. Providing good customer service and giving your customers what they expect means understanding every aspect of their lifestyle, especially when marketing to different age consumers. It will become more and more important to know what kind of music they listen to, and where they purchase clothing and auxiliary items, business software and various lifestyle factors. Additional information needed will be sports followed, children and what their children like to do, and so many more.
It is becoming more important to align yourself with third party companies that can help you gather and analyze this critical information regarding your customers in their work life, home life and lifestyle. Social media has become a useful tool also in discovering more information about customers and even providing ways to keep existing customers as loyal repeat customers.

Arnie Goldberg agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com 317-489-5337

LEADERSHIP - FIVE GUIDELINES

Leadership is not just your actions, but must include the ability to encourage and inspire others
Leadership is about trust, which is the glue that cements the followers and moves the organization forward
Leadership helps bring out the best in others including the sharing of the best within each other
Leadership is a process of teamwork, focus, commitment and execution
Leadership includes two-way communication and emphasis on solutions not complaints

The Future of Bricks & Mortar for Brokers

Agents over the past few years have moved into home offices. Today's technology provides all an agent needs to work from a home office. Is this the model of the future?

Many agents have seen reduced production. Why?
Not enough discipline - easily distracted
Lack of motivation
No consistency

A dynamic office atmosphere keeps agents working their deals, and getting more closings

Have you noticed top producers continue to operate out of an office... because they are more productive...

This is not to say home offices are not valuable and convenient... and to many they help save drive time and help many be more productive

For many, they can get lots of productivity at early and late hours also

So what do you think the future of bricks and mortar will be? Will a real estate office only need conference rooms and a bull pen?

HOW DO YOU STACK UP IN CREATING LOYAL CUSTOMERS?

Too many realtors take their existing customers for granted. Think of the automobile industry that did the very same thing. They were so bold at one time they said, “Americans will not buy Japanese automobiles.” Another example of the “fickleness” of customers is the remote control. Did you know that 72% of all households have a remote control and they zap the remote control every four minutes, and men zap much more. Thus, companies trying to create customer loyalty with television ads, and are having greater difficulty reaching the consumer. It is critical for realtors to concentrate on what is New. What I mean by that is what is old is not of much concern anymore to the public. We walk up to someone and say, “What is new?” Thus, the successful realtor has new information, new trends, new newsworthy information, new-new-new stuff for their customers. The old boring newsletters, and refrigerator magnets are not new. What is new is a valuable coupon at Macy’s or Nordstrom, for the women, or three golf balls for the man. What is new is a $10 coupon for the whole family at a restaurant. What is new is sending a copy of a current newspaper article that is timely and of keen interest to your customers. Building loyalty is an ongoing process that involves creativity and much thought, but also requires up-to-date data base information, because clients change over time. Growth with more children, maturity, career changes, and neighborhood changes around them, cause customers to have different attitudes and different viewpoints. Great realtors put systems in place to help them keep up with those changes to be more relevant in their customer’s lives. Loyal customers lead to greater profits. Written by Arnie Goldberg, VP Business Development Loyalty Builder, LLC --- Faculty University of Phoenix, Faculty Oakland City University, Faculty Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.....Author of a new Customer Loyalty book “Give Your Dog A Treat” www.giveyourdogatreat.com - agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com

The guardian at the gateway to your mind

Posting from Lew Smallwood's blog:
There is a guardian standing guard at the gateway to your mind? It’s called your reticular activating system or RAS, which is the scientific term for a network of nerve pathways situated at the base of your brain that connects the spinal cord, cerebellum, and cerebrum, and acts as a filter for all the sensory input your brain draws from your external world. Reticular, from the Latin word for ‘little net’ simply means a netlike structure. Everything you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell passes through this fine network, which then relays the signal to the appropriate part of your brain for processing.
You can think of this system as something like Google. When you type a word or search string into Google, it scours the internet for everything it can find that relates to that specific phrase, retrieves it and presents it to you, and it does this in a matter of seconds. Your reticular formation does much the same thing but does its work in thousandths of a second.
The inherent danger for us whenever a failure or disappointment occurs in life is that we can identify with it too closely, and therefore mistake the failure for ourselves. That can lead to adopting a mindset of ‘I failed therefore I am a failure’ and that dominant thought attracts further failure images and messages.
It is better to forget the failure and focus on future success. That mindset will attract positive images and messages. Never label lack of success as failure, simply learn from it and be grateful for the lesson the set back provides, and keep you RAS set for success.
Just change what you think about, change your dominant thoughts. Because in life you eventually attract what you think about most of the time.