Over the past few years we have enjoyed some of the highest recorded volumes in new home sales. In many cases, we were trying to control crowds of buyers and processing paper work as quickly and efficiently as possible. We were spending very little time building rapport with clients and concentrating more on finding out as quickly as possible what they wanted, moving quickly from prospect to prospect.

Although we still have great opportunities in the current and future market place, there will be adjustments in sales volumes and we are already seeing clients taking many more visits than before to make that final buying decision.

We need to re examine our customer’s experience when they visit our sales centre. The majority of us do an excellent job but even the proven professional needs to re evaluate their process and see where they can improve.

“Are we asking too many qualifying questions of the customer during the initial meet and greet stage? Are we pushing the guest card at them to fill out before we welcome them to our community?”

Is it fair to ask them what price range they are looking in or size they are looking for before we give them an overview of our community?

Think about some new questions to ask:

• What is it about your current home that you really like?
  
• Have you seen any new homes recently that you really liked?
  
• Compliment them on previous buying decisions
  

These kinds of questions show the customer that you are sincerely interested in what they like and want and not just trying to qualify them to see if they fit your profile while building the like and trust that is necessary for that purchaser to make a crucial buying decision.

One of my favorite rules of customer care comes from the Ritz Carlton Employee Credo which says,