How a customer experiences your brand today is largely impacted by technology and internet usage. Digitalisation has transformed buying behaviour across the globe with e-retail sales surpassing $4.2 trillion worldwide in 2020. This accounts for 18 percent of all retail sales globally, and is expected to reach 21.8 percent in 2024.
There are approximately 4.6 billion active internet users globally and over 90% use a mobile device to go online. This means how your real estate website performs on the internet (across devices) and the customer experience it provides is paramount.
Just as important however is the customer experience your business provides offline. One cannot underestimate the effectiveness of human interactions, particularly in the real estate sector.
In today’s blog, we’ll look at what customer experience is, the impact it has on your business and how to improve it. We’ll also look at automation strategies, types of offline services you could offer, and more.
Table of Contents
1. What is customer experience?
2. Why is customer experience important for your business?
3. How can you improve customer experience?
4. Why use automation?
5. The in-person customer experience
6. Conclusion
1. What is customer experience?
According to HotJar, customer experience, also known as CX, is “your customers’ holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand. It is the result of every interaction a customer has with your business, from navigating the website to talking to customer service and receiving the product/service they bought from you.”
2. Why is customer experience important for your real estate business?
Whatever your business does impacts how customers perceive your brand and whether they’ll keep coming back or not. This makes a top customer experience vital to your success, especially the one a person gets online.
PwC also indicates that:
- 73% of all people point to customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions
- 43% of all consumers would pay more for greater convenience
- 42% would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience
A great customer experience offers several benefits to your business:
- customer loyalty increases
- customer satisfaction improves
- improved word-of-mouth marketing, positive reviews, and referrals
3. How can you improve online customer experience?
To improve customer experience, you need to focus on optimising the engagement a customer might have with your company at all touch points online. This includes your website, social media pages, ads, emails, marketing campaigns, etc. Doing this involves several different activities.
Audit your online presence
Begin with a proper audit of all your online channels. Ensure that all information pertinent to your service offering is up to date and relevant wherever you have presence online. Create an editorial calendar and publish content that offers value to every homebuying audience, regularly and consistently. Also make sure that vital contact info. is properly recorded, like address, emails, phone numbers and working times.
Optimise your FAQs
Prepare detailed FAQs and base them on the real estate questions or feedback you’ve received from past homebuyers. In this way, potential clients will have the opportunity to easily find the property related information they’re seeking.
Share your insights
Create engaging blogs posts on real estate topics that you know will answer the questions potential clients are asking or solve the problems they’re currently facing. Demonstrate your expertise and credibility and leverage your position in the real estate industry through thought leadership articles on matters you are specialised in.
Make your site mobile responsive
Check whether your website is mobile friendly because if it isn’t, customer experience will be negatively impacted. Also be mindful of the following stats:
- The cut off load time for a mobile device is 5 seconds. According to Google, a delay of one-second can mean a 20% drop in conversion
- 57% of users would not recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile website
- 88% of customers will call or visit a store within 24-hours of making search from a mobile device
For more insights on this topic, head over to this blog.
Tools and functionalities
Consider adding useful tools and functionalities on your site that would be useful to a homebuyer. This could be a mortgage calculator, currency converter, an advanced search feature, or even access to a client portal that would provide information customers are seeking quickly and easily.
Improve response times
According to a survey conducted by Lithium Technologies, 66% of consumers expect a same-day response to their online request and 43% expect a response within an hour. A good way to answer to these standards would be to set an automated reply. You can add it to your email, website contact form and even use a chat-bot on your social media to send it out. This way you can let your potential customers know that their enquiry was received and will be taken care of as soon as possible.
4. Why use automation?
Automation plays a big role in improving operational efficiencies. By automating everyday workflows, you will be able to spend more time communicating and focusing on your clients. In real estate, a smart CRM system like Qobrix can also help you automate multiple sales and marketing activities, like:
- scheduling meetings, viewings, and reminders
- communicating with clients or sending them properties that match their profiles via email at the click of a button
- monitoring online campaigns
- leaving comments so that colleagues are constantly updated on the status of a client
- centralising vital data in one place
Even though automation is a critical strategy to boost efficiencies and sales, too much automation and not enough of a human touch can have a detrimental effect on a real estate company. More than that, 75% of consumers would actually want to interact with a real person as technology improves (source: PWC). This is why adding a personal touch to your campaigns and communications will establish stronger client relationships.
5. The in-person customer experience
Not every customer experience should be delivered online, especially in real estate. There are a variety of value-added services that you can provide in person to elevate the customer experience in a way that strengthens customer relationships and boosts word-of-mouth recommendations.
- Try putting together welcome packages for clients who have just moved into a property they’ve purchased from you containing all the potential information they might need
- Throw in a few coupons for local supermarkets, gyms or food deliveries, and information on their opening hours and rates
- Add some of your own branded merchandise, like a set of branded cups or coasters, which would definitely be useful to someone who just moved in
- Send out birthday cards or even e-cards to your clients. Acknowledge how long the client has been with you by sending them a thank you letter. Personalisation goes a long way in humanising your brand
6. Conclusion
To achieve a top quality customer experience with the potential to convert one time buyers into promoters of your business requires a proper understanding of the buyer’s journey. Identify key touch points, listen to customer feedback and monitor trends, all of which will help you optimise the way you deliver service.
