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Building a meaningful relationship with your clients takes time, but it can significantly improve the customer experience. Century 21 chairman and owner Charles Tarbey says without a good relationship, you’re just wasting your client’s time.
“You’ve still got to have a relationship with a buyer. You can’t go out and negotiate with a buyer to get the best possible price for your seller without having first established a relationship with them,” Mr Tarbey said.
When you are dealing with a seller, a good relationship will encourage honest communication.
“I know with my clients, some of them would say to me, ‘I’d like to sell my home for X’ and I’d go, ‘Look, Alex, don’t waste my time, don’t waste your time’,” Mr Tarbey said.
“You know, you can’t generally say that with somebody you’ve never met before.”
Mr Tarbey stressed that it is important not to allow a budding relationship with a buyer get in the way of securing the optimum price for a seller.
"If somebody comes along and makes an offer, I’m going to say, ‘Look, I can present your offer to the seller, but I’m not going to present the offer to the seller in a manner they’ll accept because, at the end of the day, the seller’s got to get the best possible price so I’ve got to get your highest possible offer before I go to the seller’,” he said.
A good relationship with clients is what sets top agents apart at a time when technology is providing a lot of information previously held exclusively by agents.
“It’s not as if we live in an uneducated world today. You can look around you and you can see what’s selling at the touch of a fingertip, with your keyboard,” Mr Tarbey said.
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