KOA means Kampgrounds of America. I did not know that. They are the largest franchisor of campgrounds in the world. For years, many of their campgrounds advertised themselves as the ‘Best KOA in America.’ Sound familiar?
Real estate brokers and agents constantly promote themselves as the #1 this or that. But what is really important to the consumer?
Bill Hendricks, CEO of KOA spoke in San Luis Obispo, RE Technology’s hometown, this week. He is an executive in residence at Cal Poly, our local university. He took the bold move of asking consumers to rate their campgrounds. He delivered the results of their surveys at their annual convention. He shared that many of the consumer suggestions were easily fixable – repair this, replace that, add something. Nothing startling.
Mr. Hendricks published the list of the top rated sites. He reports that “it was the best thing I have ever done.” People that thought they were doing a great job realized that they had work to do. “…owners forget the fundamentals of providing great service.”
The no. 1 thing that made a difference in customer satisfaction was the people. Owners who made a point to engage with their customers were rewarded with the highest satisfaction scores and the highest likelihood to revisit the location.
To this day, I cannot accept why every broker in America is not using a customer satisfaction system like QSC or RealSatisfied in their business. I personally think that publishing the satisfaction and agent ratings is the right thing to do. But, it’s an invaluable process even if you just use the results to coach your agents and staff.
Which do you think is more important to a consumer – the quality of their camping weekend or the purchase of their most important asset EVER?
At their heart real estate brokerages are service organizations. How can you feel good about running a service company if you don’t know how well you deliver service? Brokers have fallen into the trap of thinking of their primary role as talent recruiter and retainer. Every great sports team pays attention to the details and measures the results. Why do all-time winning teams like the LA Lakers closely monitor every performance stat they can get their hands on? Because they know that paying attention to the details of how you deliver your service makes all the difference in winning and losing.
Want to truly differentiate your team from your competitors? Get back to the basics.
Focus on coaching, training and celebrating amazing service experiences. If you do, good things will happen. Now here’s the hard part. If you truly pay attention to service you may end up losing some of those “it’s all about me” top producers or you may need to surround them with a support team that can deliver amazing service for them.
Time to get on the train! You and your bottom line will be glad you did!
