7 Effective Ways to Manage Client Expectations

For your clients, the real estate process is sometimes exciting, but oftentimes stressful. Coordinating movers, packing, managing finances, and dealing with death or the dissolution of relationships are only some of what’s faced by your clients during this stressful time. Helping to manage client expectations is only one of the ways you can help to reduce their stress while providing an exceptional real estate experience.

Here are 7 ways you can manage your clients’ expectations.

Have an Initial Client Meeting

It’s common to get a request to show a home to motivated buyers. Though it’s tempting, you’re better served encouraging clients to meet you at your offer before connecting with them for the first time. Reviewing agency paperwork, explaining what to expect during showings, and what happens when they make an offer, will help them in understanding the overall process moving forward.

Explain Worst-Case Scenarios

If your clients have high hopes of selling quickly or buying that home, it’s best you let them know in advance the potential worst-case scenario. Explaining what happens if their home doesn’t sell quickly, or what happens if they’re faced with multiple offers, will help them adapt if they’re faced with these circumstances.

Establish the Best Methods of Communication

Sending text messages to an elderly client or leaving voicemails on a landline might leave your clients frustrated. Establish, right from the start, the way your client (no you) prefers to communicate. Learn the best phone numbers, the best time to touch base, and the best emails to use.

Educate Them

Real estate is fraught with industry jargon. Terms like ‘completion’, ‘conditions’, ‘counter’ are common to you, but potentially baffling for your clients. To avoid confusion and calm anxieties, it’s best to explain the process in layman terms.

Be Honest

During a real estate transaction, there might be occasions that you’ll need to deliver unwanted, or unpopular news. Though it’s not fun to tell clients they didn’t ‘get the house’, or a showing didn’t go well, honesty is always the best policy.

Underpromise

Rather than promise you’ll sell their home for higher than the listing price, sell it in a short amount of time, or find them exactly the home they’re looking for, consider underpromising. Underpromising (without underselling yourself), leaves the opportunity to overdeliver.

Listen

Though you can hear your clients, it’s important (even crucial) you listen to them. Active listening includes avoiding distractions and keeping focus during every conversation. Not only helping to reveal your clients’ true motivations and desires, but you’ll also often uncover what lies between their spoken words. In addition to helping you align you efforts with their needs, listening will also increase mutual respect.