According to NAR 48% of internet leads go unanswered and the other 52% are responded to in a matter of days, not hours. That is simply UNACCEPTABLE in today’s internet driven consumer environment.
I “secret shopped” eight clients yesterday. I randomly sent e-mails to five agents per company at lunch time. That was 40 e-mails saying I was interested in buying real estate in their towns and gave them a price range plus asked them to tell me about themselves and their companies. I was also specific about the fact I expected e-mail responses because I was not ready to talk to anyone on the phone yet.
40 e-mails. Specific instructions.
Keep in mind… every study tells you today’s internet consumer expects an immediate response. Furthermore, NAR states that 74% of consumers pick the first agent that responds regardless of their experience level or just about any other metric you might measure an agent by.
Drum roll please…
40 e-mails. Specific instructions.
Results please…
2 calls within the hour, 1 call within 5 hours, 1 call within 10 hours.
THAT’S IT!!
36 out of 40 have still not responded after 34 hours!!
I realize this is not a scientific poll, however, if you are a broker you should be asking yourself the following questions:
- Why am I not “secret shopping” my agents?
- How much money might I be leaving on the table?
- Why am I not holding people accountable?
- Why don’t I have a system for tracking this?
- Why am I risking all the investments I have made in driving traffic to my site?
- Why am I risking all the investments I have made to keep people on my site so they want to do business with my company?
- Why am I leaving all this in the hands of someone else?
Inspect what you expect!