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Updating Sellers – Communication In Today’s Market

by Suzanne on Jul 14th, 2010
in Tags: communication in todays market, home feedback system, showings, updating sellers, virtual tour company, virtual tours
Posted in Eye On The Agents, Random, Text

Post Authored by:  Rob Aubrey of Keller Williams Realty

During the boom all you did was get a listing signed, you scheduled about a dozen showings the first week and took the best offer and closed. No customer service required.

We all know things have changed. Now we have listings that are 3, 4, 6 months or more. Now more than ever you have to communicate the process and progress of selling the property with the sellers – they deserve to know what is going on.

A streamlined process I use involves several components:

1.       An Automated Home Feedback System
2.       My Lock Box Account
3.       Google Apps Email with the “Canned Response” enabled (essentially it is an email template)
4.       Tour Stats

When I take a new listing, I create the template (already saved in Google Docs) for the listing.
It looks like this (what it has in function sure makes up for what it lacks in form!):

Hi NAME HERE,
Below is a table of the activity for ADDRESS HERE. The table shows activity collected from the previous 7 days (fri-thu).

(I type a specific message here)

Please contact The Rob Aubrey Group with any questions or concerns.
Thank you.

(Signature)

______________________________________________________

So, let’s go through this.

I use a virtual tour company that I pay a monthly charge for unlimited tours and I upload my own photos. I use a home feedback system that sends emails to agents for them to complete a simple form.

My lock box account and my home feedback accounts have an API so that they talk to each other. So when someone calls on a listing, I arrange the showing, if it is vacant I note that in the MLS so that it is not necessary to call.

When someone opens one of my lockboxes it automatically updates my lock box account, then my feedback account logs in to the lock box account twice a day and enters the showing into the feedback system. I get an email and the seller gets an email. So now I have a record of that.

I go into the backend of the tour account and drill down to get the link of the stats (most systems will email the seller directly I like the email to come from me).

So now back to the Email Template.

I create a table that has a blank field for showings, there is a link for called “Online Traffic” (the tour stats), and there is a field for the feedback.

On a weekly basis, I update my sellers.

I open my lock box account, my feedbox account and my email account.

I double check that the two systems talked to each other and everything is accurate.

I open the first email, enter the number of showings in the table, add the date report to the subject line and hit send.

I can update 15 sellers in about 20 minutes at the most.
Besides the fact that the process is streamlined, after about 30-45 days, I have sellers asking me if we should lower the price.

I have evidence of what is going on. We can look at the tour stats and know that 450 people did a virtual walk through but only 5 considered it worth doing a physical walk through.

The conversation goes something like this:

“Mr and Mrs Seller, we control three things, Condition, Exposure and Price. Your home is really good shape, based on the fact that we are on approximately 50 web sites and with the number of virtual walk throughs, we definitely have good exposure. The only thing left is the price…”

Many agents do not like to have this conversation mainly because they have no real data system to support what they intuitively know.

You really owe it to your sellers to keep them informed and if the price needs to be lowered to sell it, then you owe it to them to get it lowered.

The cost? I do pay for the feedback service, which is well worth it, my response rate is about 65%, if you ever tried to chase down feedback you know that is a good rate. I also pay for the tour. I do not use the the actual tour that pans around a room, I get several shots of each room and just upload the photos. It is the reporting that that has the value for the agent and the seller.

But the rest Zip, Zilch, Nada, Free, not a penny.  Just a little bit of time and (overall) sellers that are appreciative of the feedback they are getting and the detail it entails.   In today’s market, communication is key and updating sellers with the facts will pay dividends in the months to come for you both!

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