As an independent luxury real estate marketing firm, who wants to compete against the big brand real estate franchises, you can have a distinct advantage by providing “jaw-dropping service. It may cause potential clients to switch brand loyalty in your favor.
Recently, we visited our local independent pet store, instead of heading out to the national chain store in downtown Santa Barbara. They have only three locations in our area.
A young man cheerfully greeted us and was genuinely eager to find out how he could help us. When we told him that cat food was our query he walked us over to that department and proceeded to go through every dry and wet food brand that they carry, explaining the pros and cons of each for our particular needs. He knew the content of every product by heart, which thoroughly impressed us.
Their cat food brands are not available at the national chain store or at supermarkets. We purchased two of each flavor of one brand for our two cats. The prices were the same as our typical choices at the national chain store.
After this gentleman explained the difference in each of their cat litter offerings, we decided to purchase a very large and heavy bag that he offered to carry to our car. He told us that this was what they do at their store unless we wanted him to divide it into smaller bags as a courtesy. Our jaws dropped!
What a difference in service between the local independent and the national chain store with 1000 locations! Our cats love every one of the food items we purchased. This actually represents a savings because it was always hit and miss with our finicky cats, which meant quite a bit of waste.
We started to contemplate defecting to the local independent store even thought we liked the convenient location of the chain store (next door to our most frequented market). Then, came the clincher that overcame our switching barrier.
Ron wanted to return a defective cat toy purchased from the chain store. The checkout clerk, who knows us very well, refused to give him a full value credit ($3.99) because he did not have a receipt. He was offered a gift card for 70 cents, which is the current sales price of similar (defective) items.
An appeal to the store manager, who also knows us very well as frequent customers, was also fruitless. He felt like he was talking with robots who were not allowed to override a policy to make important entrepreneurial customer retention decisions.
End of brand loyalty! For about 3 dollars, they lost hundreds of dollars of business per year from us. Jaw-dropping service caused us to jump ship!
How can you incorporate jaw-dropping service in your luxury real estate practice?
Written by Ron & Alexandra Seigel-
ABOUT: Napa Consultants, International is the leader in brand strategy for the luxury real estate industry. They work exclusively with professionals who are passionate about gaining or sustaining market leadership. With an expertise in personal branding, company branding, luxury real estate website design and social media marketing they help their clients become the breakaway brand in their marketplace.
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