Key takeaways:
¨ Inconsistencies in how and when you communicate with prospects damages trust and confidence
¨ Few agencies prioritise improving their consistency, making it a great opportunity for competitive advantage
¨ Automation and a centralised CXM system can power a far more streamlined, consistent customer journey
When it comes to customer experience, one of the biggest challenges facing estate and lettings agencies is consistency: ensuring that prospects, customers and landlords encounter the same messaging, with the same tone, at every touchpoint.
This is understandable: creating true consistency is extremely challenging, and few agencies have the time or resources to focus on something which seems relatively insignificant.
The only problem is, it isn’t insignificant: consistent brand presentation and messaging has been shown to increase revenue by an average of 23%, and 87% of customers report feeling their experience with a business is often inconsistent to the point of damaging relations.
So those inconsistencies you let slip through the cracks are actively costing you sales, clients and growth. But you’d never know it, because the damage is cumulative and generally hard to quantify.
The impact of inconsistency
There are a number of reasons marketing strategists believe consistency is important: it improves recognition and brand recall; it creates a strong connection with customers; and it makes your claims more plausible.
For our purposes, however, we can focus on the most important factor: trust.
Estate and lettings agencies continually struggle with a negative reputation, making it difficult to convince prospects that we care about their specific, individual needs. In order to combat this, every interaction they have with your agency needs to feel like a continuation of the previous interaction, as it would when you get to know a person.
But imagine if you start sending mixed signals: an email message makes one claim, but when they talk to an actual salesperson, they say something slightly different. This is jarring, in the way a new acquaintance forgetting your name would be. And therefore the prospect slightly steps back, feeling they can’t entirely trust you to be transparent and truthful.
The competitive advantage
Of course, this is a very common problem for agencies: sending emails that are irrelevant, responding too slowly, and generally communicating inconsistently. But that is exactly why improving your consistency is so important.
Most agencies provide very similar services, so any opportunity to truly differentiate yourself must be seized with both hands.
The trouble with consistency is it generally requires exceptional planning and communication internally, to ensure that every touchpoint is covered and everybody knows when and how to communicate with prospects. When you’re passing leads about or attending to tasks piecemeal with no overarching strategy? That is exactly when inconsistencies occur.
While an agency could in theory improve their consistency through rigorous management and strategising, few have the time or resources to really make an impact in that way. And this is exactly why Customer Experience Management (CXM) systems are so effective.
How Active Agent improves consistency
Systems like ours are built to simplify large workflows, save employees time and effort, and generate more relevant, persuasive and consistent messaging campaigns.
By automating email campaigns, we allow your agency to avoid the human-error so prevalent when emails and appointment texts are sent by individual workers in a rush to get to the next thing.
By providing improved landing pages, we present prospects with a more inherently trustworthy, persuasive introduction to your agency.
And by providing a centralised, easily-accessible CRM system with clearly presented customer data reports, we allow you to manage your customers’ journeys in detail, understanding where individual prospects are in their interactions with you and what action needs to come next.
Closing thoughts | Consistency is more important than ever
After a shockingly strong October for housing sales, we’re still in a deeply precarious position in terms of demand: will the next year see fewer people entering the market, or will we be able to hang on to the recent boom?
Either way, your agency will need a fighting spirit over the coming 12 months, and putting a new emphasis on consistent customer journeys will help you demonstrate to prospects and existing customers alike that you care more about their business.
If you’d like to see what that might mean in practise, click here to book your free demo today.