Selling a house is not just a complicated financial and logistical endeavor. It’s also an emotional and personal affair. We often work with families who’ve spent decades in a house, watching their kids grow up and experiencing all of life’s ups and downs within its walls. They may be parting ways with their home for reasons outside of their control, such as financial hardship, death in the family, or a major life change. Often, it’s just time to move on. Whatever the case, they usually find themselves in a tough spot, and they demand a smooth, transparent process with someone they can trust. At Sundae, it’s imperative that we provide this. 

Ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the stakes are even higher in our business. Customers buying and selling houses have all the normal challenges to consider, which are stressful enough on their own. But now they also have the added anxiety of a pandemic and threat of economic meltdown hanging over their heads. It’s understandable for many to feel like a house sale could make or break them. This makes our job even more important, and in some ways more difficult.

But dealing with coronavirus reminds us that there is always room to improve operations and customer service. In fact, streamlining the ways we work in the wake of the virus has not only helped us as a business, but also provided a more efficient and consistent customer experience for anyone looking to Sundae for help. 

Here are three key lessons we’ve learned during this challenging time. 

Lesson 1: Emphasize technology and internal cohesion

At Sundae, we define technology as more than just our hardware and software. Technology is, more broadly speaking, the process of constant innovation and drive for improvement. The way our business works is not always straightforward. In essence, we find customers looking to sell dated and damaged houses, and we buy those houses or find buyers for them through an investor marketplace. But there are a lot of moving parts. 

We’re constantly reviewing our workflows from marketing and customer service to sales and closing operations. One of the most important lessons we’ve learned recently is the importance of keeping our teams connected. Our Customer Advisors dealing directly with home sellers need to know where each customer came from and why. Our Market Experts who negotiate directly with homeowners need to understand their motivations and goals. And our Marketing team can’t do its job properly without constant communication with downstream stakeholders to know what’s happening with prospects after they first come into contact with Sundae. 

Going beyond the standard protocol of check-in meetings and emails, we used the time during the coronavirus shutdown to  streamline our customer touch points and lead qualification process and tools. We also put together a task force of discipline leads to meet regularly and provide weekly company-wide updates on how each department was shifting its strategy. 

Finally, we began exporting “call notes” from our sales platform and circulating them in a daily recap of every customer interaction with a qualified lead in our funnel. The updates placed special emphasis on how the virus was affecting (or not affecting) customer behaviors. Messages were circulated to every member of the marketing, sales, and operations groups, and a healthy conversation flowed from this forum. The result was a more informed and focused team, even while we all worked remotely. 

Lesson 2: There is no substitute for the human touch

Improving our technical proficiency was helpful, but didn’t account for the personal challenges facing our customers during the time of coronavirus. According to Verse CEO David Tal, “Technology alone is inauthentic, but humans alone are inefficient.” That statement resonates with us now more than ever. We’ve learned that blending the best of humans and technology creates better sales and marketing outcomes. 

As we looked for ways to get better in how we talk to our customers, we recognized a few limitations. One was that our Customer Advisor team was working around the clock to cover the phones all hours of the day and provide useful updates into our sales management platform. Looking at the alternatives, we saw that most third party providers either could not efficiently integrate with our sales funnel, or they leaned too heavily on off-shoring solutions. With a customer base dealing in the high anxiety situation of a home sale, we felt foreign call centers gave off a whiff of insensitivity.

Working with Verse, we were able to implement a custom workflow in which Verse customer service representatives help qualify leads and inject them directly into our sales funnel. Their call centers are based in the U.S. and provide 24-7 support, as well as a friendly voice who is familiar with our business. This solution provides better customer attention on the front lines. But more importantly, it allows our Customer Advisors to spend more time providing personalized engagement with qualified prospects, making every customer interaction more meaningful.

Lesson 3: Helpful content builds trust

As noted in our company mission statement, we aren’t just trying to “close deals” with our customers. We believe we aren’t successful if we haven’t fundamentally helped them address their problem. This aim does not conflict with a healthy revenue stream for our business. In fact, we think doing the right thing attracts more people to our business, helping us build scale and efficiency. 

One of the best ways we help is through our content and messaging strategy. At Sundae, we are actively creating content for various audience segments to provide information, tips, and guidance on a range of real estate topics. This content includes data-driven analyses, human-focused customer stories, and instructional articles and videos. The Sundae blog may advise a reader on how to choose a buyer for their house, recognize fraud, or increase the value of their home through amazing interior design and home improvement hacks. 

Perhaps as important as the content itself, at Sundae we actively encourage participation from throughout our organization in creating and distributing this helpful content to our customers. This means tapping into our extensive staff expertise for content generation, including articles written by our real estate economists and valuation experts. It also means integrating content and messaging into our sales interactions. Our goal is for everyone working with customers to be equipped with articles, infographics, videos, and other content they can share to help answer questions or provide more context on a range of personal circumstances. 

This has been especially important lately, as people are wondering about the state of the economy and how it’s affecting housing. As a homebuyer that has continued to purchase houses throughout these uncertain times — even while many of our competitors suspended operations — this proactive approach to content dissemination has helped us build momentum and satisfy a lot of homeowners in need. 

Talk to a Verse Lead Conversion Specialist to see how we can help

Content Marketing is King

Many of the greatest rewards in life take time and patience with little to no results up front. 

Content marketing is much the same. With consistency and time, customers grow to trust a brand and word-of-mouth becomes as easy as sharing a link or social media post. A tree takes a while to produce fruit. But once it does, it produces regularly. Think of your brand this way and understand these reasons why content builds your brand to produce fruit:

1. Content marketing isn’t superficial.

When building and creating content, you’re creating resources and expertise for consumers to use for themselves. Content marketing is essentially giving and giving to your consumers without asking. Then when the end of the year comes, you ask for something in return. You’ll notice people trust a brand when they’re treated like humans instead of a check.

2. Content marketing is cheap. 

Again, go back to the magic penny. If it is only a small investment manifested over time, it’s worth it. Compare this to spending on campaigns and advertisements. Content creation is free and social media platforms and blogs are, too!

3. Content makes your leads more likely to convert.

Believe it or not, content marketing is responsible for 6 times as many conversions as traditional marketing. It’s the difference between a warm and cold lead. Sales ends up loving marketing leads because they’re usually high-intent. Since they’ve been following along and have more of a “journey” toward purchase, these leads are low-hanging fruit for marketing to convert and for sales to close. 

4. Content spreads like wildfire.

Much like the penny doubled daily, so do the effects of content. After a year of consistent content marketing, you’ll notice your call-to-actions are sparking much more responses or leads. Per dollar, content marketing produces 3 times more leads. Even more so, as your customer base grows, so does customer referrals. It’s a win-win as the trust only further solidifies in your target customer. 

For more ways to see how marketing and sales can convert more leads with real conversations and data, check out our lead conversion software.

In a time where shifts and changes are inevitable or necessary, it’s important to come back to the foundation of what’s important in order to keep your business running and growing. Consumers are intuitive in the buying process and desire a comfortable experience with your sales teams.

With that being said, there are five things you cannot stop doing no matter what, unless you want to see leads and potential customers fall through the cracks:

Can’t stop responding to your inbound leads.

Your leads, whether they come in during the work week or in the middle of the night, should always have a timely response. Why? Not only do 50% of leads end up purchasing from the business who responds first, but you are 21x more likely to close a deal when you answer within the first five minutes after a lead fills out an inquiry.

Is it likely your sales team will be ready to answer that 3AM lead? No. But there are options. Hiring a lead conversion platform, like Verse, will ensure every lead is accounted for, including the ones coming in after-hours, on weekends, and during holidays.

Can’t stop following up.

So a lead hasn’t converted to an appointment yet? The fortune is in the follow up. Contacting a lead three times gives you an 81% chance of getting a hold of your leads and six times gives you an even better chance at 93%.

You can use lead data to help gauge the consistency of follow-up, give insight as to when might be the best time to contact, and effectively help you create an effective schedule for following up with your leads. Make sure you’re being realistic with your bandwidth and ability to capitalize on said schedule.

Every lead is an opportunity which means you can’t neglect to follow up with them– even the seemingly stale ones!

Can’t stop answering people.

Your potential customers are calling and yet, 75% of them say it’s difficult to get a hold of an agent or salesperson. Even more so 67% of them will give up on them out of frustration.

Your customers are trying to do business with you. Part of the struggles around communicating with high-intent leads come from a lack of bandwidth of your sales team. There’s an inability to be there for consumers because of other tasks at hand.

Your leads want to talk. Make sure you’re not dropping the ball (and the opportunity for business and relationships).

Can’t let levels of service drop.

While much of the world around us is changing, consumers are not. In a world of Amazon Prime 2-Day shipping, people are still the same consumers who not only appreciate but want instant gratification, excellent service, and comfort.

In fact, a lack of service or the inability to meet consumers on their terms can often deter a consumer from ever purchasing at all. 33% of consumers say it only takes one bad customer service incident to switch to another competitor. And once your customer service reputation is damaged, you’ll find it very difficult to win an opportunity to prove them wrong again.

Can’t stop caring!

Have you ever been on the phone with a salesperson or agent and realized how clear it is they don’t care about your business? Have you ever felt treated like any other customer?

Business and even selling are way less about money and “what can you do for me” and much more about relationships and connection. Your consumers are paying attention. They are intuitive and can tell by tone, language, and body language how much you care about them and their needs.

So be there for your prospects, go the extra mile, and research ways to connect with your demographic on a personal level. But more importantly, don’t stop caring about them or they will certainly stop caring about your business.

To learn more about how you can turn every lead into an opportunity, book a demo and see how our lead conversion platform works!