Real estate brokers have a difficult time battling the challenges with reputation management. Brokers hire agents. Agents deliver services to the consumer. The consumer judges the brokerage on the service level of its agents. Brokers try to hire well to preserve their reputation. Around and around it goes.
Many brokers to do not track their reputation as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). They track unit volume, agent count, broker dollar, and so many other things. Only a few firms use services like Quality Service Certified or Real Satisfied or Testimonial Tree to measure satisfaction. Those brokerages who are following best practices are seeing information everyday that both delights them and disgusts them. As it turns out, satisfaction is a mixed bag.
Even for those brokerages that are measuring satisfaction and reputation, they are limiting themselves to consumer feedback. That is good in many ways, but these firms are failing to measure another KPI: What is the level of satisfaction that managers and agents have with the brokerage? Only a few WAV Group brokerage clients are studying the root of all reputation management – themselves.
Brokerage operators do not contest the understanding that a bad manager or a bad agent can spoil an office. Negativity is a dark cloud that curses the performance of any business. It is curious to me that brokers do not measure agent satisfaction in underperforming offices. They do not benchmark agent satisfaction across multiple offices. Every time we are hired to fix a broken office, it is typically a problem with attitude. A negative person or a bad attitude erodes everything. Recruiting fails because agents talk to other agents about the manager, or a troublesome agent, who spoils the off
ice. Sales fail because an agent who stops in the office to get ready for a listing presentation walks out with a hangover from a toxic office environment. Learning fails because agents do not want to come to the office for training. It is a downward spiral that leads to poor performance in everything that you do.
The Bright Side
Agent satisfaction research will help you diagnose the problems in your offices that are causing failure. Moreover, when you make the necessary adjustments you will find that the skies part and success pours in! Positivity is intoxicating. It turns everything around. Everyone is excited to jump out of bed and rush to the welcome arms of great, collaborative, supportive work environment. Joy begets success. Success begets a viral reputation as the best office to work in. Other agents jump into your boat to sail toward their accomplishments.
Reputation starts inside
Take the first step to reputation management by measuring it internally. Do the people working for you hold you in high regard? Need help finding out? Give us a call and we can help you build a program that insures that you will never miss the mark on delighting your agents, and subsequently the consumers they serve.
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