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How to Improve Customer Retention for Your Real Estate Business

Posted On Sunday, 08 November 2020 21:10
How to Improve Customer Retention for Your Real Estate Business

Customer retention is a crucial marker for success for real estate businesses, but most aren’t reaching it. According to the NAR, only 12% of all buyers and 27% of sellers say that they used the same real estate agent that they’d used in a previous transaction. 

That’s concerning when you think about the number of times an average American moves house. Although the numbers have been falling since 1988, each person still moves house approximately 11.7 times. 

In 2018-19, 31 million Americans, or 9.8% of the population, moved to a new home, which is a good reason to attract and keep a customer from their very first house move. 88% of first-time buyers are aged 22-29, so they have many more moves ahead of them. If you can secure their loyalty, they’re likely to come back to you each time, giving you a lot more business than new customers who are nearing the end of their moving lives. Plus, retaining loyal customers brings you more new customers; two-fifths of buyers and sellers said they found their agent through a recommendation. 

Increasing retention for real estate customers might sound difficult to achieve, but there are specific steps you can take to raise your retention rates and your revenue. 

Meet customer needs before they ask

Different customers are likely to prioritize different issues during their real estate purchase. The more you can anticipate their priorities and make appropriate suggestions, the better your customer relationship and the more likely they are to return. 

For 55% of buyers, the most difficult part of the home purchase process was finding the right property, far more than the 19% who said paperwork was their bugbear. 52% said that help finding the right home is what they most wanted from real estate agents. 


Source: NAR 2020 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report

Just imagine how they’ll feel when you understand their needs enough to make practical and helpful property suggestions. For example, do most families with young children want a large garden, or an extra room for a playroom? Is energy efficiency high on the list of first-time buyers’ concerns, or are they more interested in proximity to commuting links? 

Delivering excellent customer service relies on answering these questions confidently, and that rests on a combination of wider real estate reports and insights from your own customer data. It’s tough to generate insights without CRM software, yet only 53% of real estate firms already use one. CRMs like Superoffice keep track of trends for each demographic, age group, and neighborhood, so you can suggest the most appropriate properties that meet the needs that the customer hasn’t even expressed yet. 

Understand customer preferences and pain points

Buying and selling a new home can be stressful and fraught, and different people have different ways of reacting. For example, some people want to hear regular updates. They’ll worry if you haven’t been in touch at least once a week, even if it’s just to ask how they’re doing. Others want to leave you to get on with it and to only get in touch when you have something concrete to report, and they get anxious when they hear from you unexpectedly. 

Adapting your operating style to match their preferences helps increase customer satisfaction. Use social listening and your CRM to track omnichannel interactions with each customer, and then piece them together to develop a holistic picture of customer preferences. It takes these tools to reach granular level insights at scale. 

Delight your customers in unexpected ways

Your real estate customers might take it for granted that you’ll check out a property with them or help them with their paperwork, but they might not expect you to show up a few days after them move with a small house-warming gift, or send a warm, personal message in a card welcoming them to their new home. 

These small touches show personal service and attention that surprises and delights customers and retains their loyalty for good. Use CRM software to keep track of your customers, their new address (so you can deliver that gift), their moving dates, and more, so your gift and message are both timely and relevant. 

Don’t let customers fall through the cracks

Years can go by before your customers are ready to look for a new property. A lot can change in that time, but you want to be the first real estate agent they think of. The only way to stay at the top of their mind is to keep in touch in non-aggressive ways, like sending an annual winter holidays email or a card to wish them “Happy 1st anniversary of your move.” You’ll need your CRM to keep customer data tidy and delete duplicate entries and expired contact details.

Up your game a level when you mine data like NAR reports, which details how long an average family remains in their property at each age and stage of life. For example, most people who sold a home stay in their new property for an average of 10 years before they’re ready to move again, but sellers aged 30-39 move after just 5 years, and sellers aged over 74 stay for 19 years. 

A CRM keeps your contacts organized so you can track their timing, and advanced software can even generate an automated reminder when a buyer is nearing the point when they’d be likely to move. That’s when you can get in touch with a gentle reminder that there’s demand for properties like theirs in this area, or a suggestion of a property that they might be interested in.

Retain real estate customers by nurturing the relationship

No matter what your industry, retention rates depend upon maintaining a warm, positive relationship with your customers. The right tools like a CRM help you understand the needs, pain points, and purchasing or selling styles of each individual, provide unexpected and delightful post-purchase support, and keep track of customers over the long term so they’ll return to your real estate business again and again. 

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