Protect your estate agency from tricky market conditions and cheap fee competitors with this powerful strategy

As a business owner, you will likely have come across the term 'customer journey' whilst marketing your business. 

A customer journey is basically a series of emails, or content, sent to a prospective customer over a period of time. With each email acting as a touchpoint, trust is built between this customer and your company. The more touch points or time spent with your company, the higher the chances of them contacting you for a valuation appointment.

And if the journey is built correctly, each touchpoint can move the prospect along, nurturing them and building trust and rapport before eventually, they become a client. It uses the same principle as a sales funnel. 

In an estate agency, prospective property sellers are less likely to respond to a sales email. The decision to move house and which agent to use is so huge that they need to know and trust you before instructing you to sell their home. 

Read more … Why sharing trade secrets is the power move for estate agents in 2022

So, you can significantly improve your chances of regular client leads and a successful business if you build a journey that is nurturing, not selling, to your prospects. 

And lucky you! There is software available to help build these journeys and then track the prospects to increase the chances of success.

If you are a user of Lifesycle software, you will definitely have heard lots of talk about Customer Journeys. To make the most of this innovative technology, you must use the customer journey system to its full potential, and it will generate regular valuation leads for your estate agency.

Once you understand how powerful these journeys are and how important it is to nurture prospective clients, you will realise that your business is vulnerable without a system in place. Ever-changing market conditions, competitors and terrifyingly low fees threaten to harm estate agency businesses and their future.

When the market is struggling for stock levels, agents become desperate and cut fees to win instructions. This is a terrible way to run an estate agency and eventually lead to ruin. Unless the market improves, your agency is vulnerable because it relies too heavily on the market picking up and saving your bacon.

These journeys work in the background whilst you get on with your day. They contact your prospective clients consistently without you even having to think about it. Until one day, months or possibly years in the future, you receive a call or email from one of these prospects instructing you to sell their property.

It feels a bit like magic and can take you by surprise when it happens!

Prospects that you may have totally forgotten about. People who perhaps instructed a competitor or decided that they weren't quite ready to move yet. Suddenly, they get in touch out of the blue because they are ready now. And you have not had to keep track of them, or call them every week, because the software has done that for you.

Sounds good, doesn't it? 

So, how do you get started?

I have written multiple customer journeys for estate agents, which have been built into the software, to keep in touch with lost valuations, or pending valuations, for both sales and lettings. Some have followed up with withdrawn properties and even applicants that have not had their home valued yet. The options are really endless and are only limited by your own imagination!

These journeys are contacting potential sellers automatically, ensuring that your agency is communicating consistently. Using whatever parameters you want, whether it's as soon as they do an instant valuation or even after they have instructed a competitor, the system will communicate with them, nurturing them along the customer journey, increasing those valuable touch points along the way!

Your email sequence moves a seller from idly thinking about moving house to put their property on the market.

This is the journey that this seller would take naturally; you are simply helping them along the way with helpful advice and articles, making your agency the clear choice when the time comes to market their property.

Without this regular contact, the seller could have simply ended up searching 'agents in my area'. This lack of guidance leaves the seller to decide based on the agent with the biggest market share or cheapest fees. A race to the bottom is then inevitable, really, which is no good for anyone!

The very best agents have a customer journey for their business. It shows the sellers the incredible job they can do, the expert knowledge that can guide and advise them, and the fantastic experiences other clients have had

You will blow the competition out of the water when you build a robust customer journey system. Your company values and tone of voice have already been demonstrated through your helpful content. It really doesn't matter what is said at the valuation appointment; the seller has already chosen you, usually before you have even got to the property. The rapport has been built, the trust has been gained, and when the sellers are ready to sign up, it will be your agency that they call.

I have built many journeys for many different agencies, and they have seen massive success with the increasing valuation leads and instructions.

If you would like help to build customer journeys for you, too, get in touch.

Or why not download my free ebook? Click here for The Ultimate Marketing Strategy for Estate Agents!