Residential Real Estate
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Customer Retention Tips for Today"s Challenging Economy
This is where you make your money but it just really is a matter of getting with your customer base. Be involved with investors and help them understand the opportunity in front of them and then how to take advantage of it. Mosca: I’m wondering if consumer electronic technologies, sustainability and energy efficiency are ways that builders are separating themselves or creating a niche in these markets? Turner: They are but not as much here. Our energy costs are pretty marginal, they are economical and we build pretty energy efficient houses. The Memphis climate is not severely cold and not too severely hot. We keep moving. We don’t ever stop and wait. We are steadily moving to get to that next market. That’s where we are having to change and reinvent and become that niche builder that we have a product here that everybody wants. Williams: No matter which niche market is your target market, being green is cool. I know a lot of the Gen Yers out there are especially looking for socially responsible apartment communities or are working with companies who can do that. I think there are several ways you can do that. First of all if you work for a property management company you might want to look at water conservation and energy conservation. Those are the two of the easiest things you can do if you have an existing product already. In fact, one manager in Dallas walked around her pool; it was a bigger apartment community. I think she had 350 units. She walked around the pool one summer afternoon and found 17 dripping faucets just from residents sitting by the pool. Get in all of the apartments, check the air filters, make sure they are clean, make sure your HVAC units are working effectively, and that’s one way that we are going to do our part so save the environment and to save some energy. You can start a recycling program, program the thermostats in apartments is a big deal. There are all kinds of community projects you can get together to help clean up the town and be more socially responsible. Even if you aren’t building a new product, you can look within your existing product to see how you can make it more green. Anderson: Over the twenty years that we have been in business, we have probably reinvented ourselves half a dozen times based on not only what the market was telling us, but also what the client was telling us. Up until this recent downturn in the economy, we were tenant in common sponsors. We were investing clients’ tax deferred proceeds from sales into larger income properties, primarily multi-family properties. When the capital markets went away there was no liquidity, there was no selling going on so our business went on to take advantage of this economic downturn and take advantage of some of the distressed properties that are hitting the market. We had to sit down and reinvent ourselves in the distressed market business, which oddly enough we started in the late ‘80s and this is the exact same market we started in. We have come full circle in 20 years but one of the things that we’ve learned is that the client will never lead you astray. If you listen to them and you pay attention to what they see, what they need, where they want to go, where they see the opportunity, and position yourself to help in that process, you can never go wrong. Mosca: What are your golden nuggets for today? Anderson: The most successful things that we have ever done in customer retention especially in the investment area is listened. In particular, we’ve listened closely to our critics. We’ve established advisory boards from our clients that we have paid to come in and criticize us and tear us apart. Don’t underestimate social media. We have a number of groups that are discussion groups that we helped form and that we participate in that are designed to help us look for ways to improve. The most important things are listening and transparency. Williams: People remember how you make them feel so if you are a salesperson, if you are a manager, if you are a boss, when that person leaves your office or leave the encounter with you, did they feel good about it? If you think about your favorite teacher growing up in school, you are probably going to tell me some of the characteristics or the personality aspects of that teacher that you liked. People remember how you make them feel. Concentrate more on the interaction rather than a cheesy sales pitch or trying to get the person to sign a renewal. Turner: I think there are a lot of people that are looking for that deal out there and there are lots of deals and Cash is King right now. If you have equity and money and you need to be buying property, you need to look at land. Land is the greatest investment. It hedges you against inflation. There are income producing farms, timberland, a lot of other things that are out there that people are overlooking. They want to go buy a house that is a real house but the real market is a little tough right now and maybe it"s not their best investment but land I can tell you from my portfolio, my land and farm operations have gone up in value double-digits over the last three years. The big purchasers now, if you go and look, the big purchasers now are trying to buy every income producing farm, operating farm that they can when it comes on the market.Pages: 1 [2]