Common Sense Office Policy

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Have you ever called an agent’s office and asked, “May I please speak with John?”, and find yourself sent directly to John’s voice mail? Does it irritate you? It is one of my pet peeves. Or how about email? How many times have you sent information by email, or a series of questions to someone during an escrow, only to have them call you with several questions which were answered in your initial message — Or answer only two of the five questions you asked.

Ever found yourself after lunch waiting for a response from an email you sent in the morning, only to find out they hadn’t even looked at their mail yet? Often these are the same people who fancy themselves as being part of a ‘hi-tech’ operation.

Faxes too have become a major headache in our business. By the time a document has done a few fax-laps it may resemble pages copied from the Red Sea scrolls. With the cost of scanners down these days to just above a case of Pepsi Vanilla, (Less that is unless you’re selling it to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy :-)) scanning signed docs for emailing makes a lot of sense. It also has saved hours of needless conversations between agents and escrow, lenders, and other agents. How many times would you have given serious money just to have a readable contract when time mattered? This is where scanning, and the use of pdf’s are simply a no-brainer.

All this can cost the agent money, and worse, clients. In the short run clients will accept the fact that others are slowing you down through poor performance. But eventually the failures of those upon whom you rely will be associated with you. And if the offender is you, your clients will not long think of you as a real pro.

I offer the solutions we’ve installed in our office. They’re surely not the only way to go, but they work for us.

• With rare exception the phone will be answered before the third ring by a live voice.
• If the person called is unavailable, a time for the returned call is established.
• If someone else can help the caller immediately they go out of their way to do just that.
• Our email programs are set to send & receive every five minutes. Furthermore, they are set to appear in front of anything else we might be working on if there are in fact messages.
• Unless on the phone or with clients all emails are to be returned immediately if not sooner.
• If good judgment dictates, emails are sometimes answered by phone to avoid confusion.
• All docs will be emailed and not faxed if the choice is available.
• Lenders, escrows, transaction coordinators, title companies, and inspectors who work with our firm all agree to adopt these policies when dealing with us or our clients.

Our clients have often commented how nice it is to get their calls answered by a human voice 90% of the time. And love getting the vast majority of their emails responded to in 2-15 minutes. Their transaction file folders contain contracts, disclosures, and other documents which, unlike previous experiences, are actually readable. They feel spoiled – which was the goal in the first place.