The End User Experience

When managing a real estate firm and the services delivered by it, we have a lot of elements to consider as we measure the sales data and metrics. The agents and their customers are the key contributors to the success of a transaction. But the company can do everything perfectly and the agent can muck it up. Or vice versa. Mortgage, settlement services, and many other players can play a part in the perception of the service they receive. A challenging market can somehow be blamed on an agent who has no control over it.

When you look at a relocation transaction, the number of stakeholders expands exponentially. It is not just the transferee, but the corporation they work for and the RMC that is facilitating the move, and the many other providers who slip in and out along the way. But internal metrics don’t always tell the whole story. There is one set of metrics that stands out when it comes to assessing organizational effectiveness. The strongest proof of progress is always user experience. 

Metrics don’t lie, or do they?

Even if we complete a transaction, under budget and on time giving the illusion of mission accomplished, if people are unhappy it will come back to haunt us. We may learn of dissatisfaction either through a user survey or if we all of a sudden stop getting business from a source of business. We may find out too late to correct the issue as it unfolds. The hard stats may imply success. If the user experience isn’t great every time, we are at risk.

I remember in the past working with a counselor who failed to escalate a pretty significant issue. When asked why, they said “The agent wasn’t at fault. It was the customer’s fault.” My head almost exploded. It’s not about fault. It’s about why there is a perceived issue and what we can do to resolve it.

Through a variety of feedback processes, some companies can learn how users think about and engage in an organization at every touchpoint. Direct feedback from users through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and interactive forums will give leaders a more textured understanding of how users are responding to an organization’s efforts. But as brokers how are we supposed to do that for a relocation transaction? We aren’t supposed to survey the transferees since that is in the RMC’s control typically. Every transaction is different, we aren’t selling cars where each model is the same. There are too many variables to count.

How can we waylay disaster?

We can’t assume that because we have tried and true procedures they will work in every scenario. Things go sideways when we least expect it. Transactions are tricky right now. People get spooked easily. And a lot of money is at stake.

While one customer may love an agent, another may be turned off by them. That is where the relocation department comes in. By knowing their agent team well, they can try and assess, based on the information given to them, who will be a good agent match. But once the match is made it falls to the agent to maintain the relationship through constant communication. The agents should be trained to raise a red flag if they feel a disconnect. If it isn’t a match, make a change. The agent will get over it.

That is why it is so critical for the source of the business to provide as much detail as possible about the family. When I hear about auto-routing relocation referrals, I cringe. It might work if there are enough details about the family to actually do a skills match with the agent. For example, the family has a special needs child. The agent has a degree in special education or has a special needs child of their own. That’s when it might work, but that means accessing detailed needs analysis on the family and having solid profiles on the agent team. AI can make the match, but people must gather, monitor and provide relevant data. It still often comes down to a gut feeling.

Keep it transparent

The more we understand our customers and their experiences, the more likely it is we will have a finger on the pulse of continued success. That’s why having staff who have purchased homes and relocated themselves goes a long way to understanding what our customer base is going through and their expectations.

Ensuring our agents and our counselors over-communicate during the relocation process and ‘take the pulse’ of everyone involved is the only way to keep feelings at the surface and transparent. Regularly asking, “Is this going as you expected it to go?” and “What else can we do to help you through this?” will give them an opportunity to speak up without feeling like they are complaining. We may not be able to solve all of the challenges ahead, but by acknowledging them and addressing what we can, we become part of a unified team striving for success.

It is worth remembering that progress never occurs exclusively inside the walls of an organization, so the more we talk to our agents, customers and our sources of business about their current pain points will allow us to ensure they all have a great end-user experience.

“If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem.” ~Steve Jobs, was an American business magnate, inventor, and investor.