Kardinia Property Director, Sara Taylor talks about customer service and earning respect in the Real Estate Industry
Continual education and development of our knowledge and experience is high on the priority list here at Kardinia Property. Attending seminars, professional development and study is expected of our staff in order ensure that we are always providing the best experience for our clients. Recently we listened to author Jeanne Bliss who published the book “Would you do that to your mother?”. In this book she notes that great customer service and feedback relies on respect, transparency and honesty. She says, “businesses shouldn’t run based on the their time and their convenience, but instead on their customer’s life and what’s important to them.”
We really connected with her message, especially around the respect and transparency elements. Any relationship without these two elements loses its trust. Transparency for both sellers and buyers is vitally important in all communication here at Kardinia Property.
The real estate industry seems to throw words like honest, ethical and trust around a lot through slick marketing and mission statements, yet as an industry when looking at the surveys of trusted professions (http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7244-roy-morgan-image-of-professions-may-2017-201706051543), real estate agents constantly come in at less then 10%. Why is this? We think that a very small percentage of agents deliberately do the wrong thing, we also think that many agents whilst being great people, don’t know that their actions & systems are far more damaging to their clients than what they realise. Or they say one thing to their clients, but think another.
For us it is only when we are face to face or communicating via other mediums with clients that we can actually demonstrate our transparency and respect compared with the typical industry alternatives. It is one thing to shout it out from the roof top but quite another thing to actually practice what you preach. As the survey results show, there are serious flaws in our industry, we believe that the first step to improving is identifying the problems, then doing everything possible to avoid them. We know that being good people, from good families with good reputations actually makes us different from the majority. But we also know that best practice doesn’t simply come from meeting a basic personal standard or just being nice. Our best practice comes from both the above AND continuously exceeding the standard, looking for ways to improve, demonstrating respect and transparency and hence earning the same from our clients. We could be discussing trust and honesty within the Real Estate industry for quite some time and we are sure that many people have their own stories. However we’ll stop and quite simply ask you, our potential clients to experience the Kardinia Property difference and see for yourself how we continuously execute best practice. We are nice, normal people who are aiming every day to ALWAYS put our clients needs first, every decision we make is based around this and with respect and transparency running through our communications, how can this not lead to a positive outcome for sellers and for buyers?
As Jeanne Bliss says… as a kid you are taught to respect your parents, in business the same applies, continually asking yourself “would you do that for your mother?” will always put you a step ahead.
Sara Taylor and Jackson Wilson are the Directors of Kardinia Property specialising in residential property sales. Kardinia Property office is located at 316 Pakington Street, Newtown.