Do Your Emails Do All They Can?
Email has become the main form of communication between commercial property agents and their occupiers, but does this form of correspondence reflect your agency’s standards of professionalism and customer care and are the sales opportunities taken?
What Has Been Said?
Commercial property search engine, NovaLoca, allows occupiers to contact the property agent directly from the website. The agents replies are then fed back to the occupier also via the site. Some of the common replies from agents we see include:
What Does this Mean for Your Business?
- Customer services: If you don’t send a message with an attachment or don’t bother to reply at all you are unlikely to give the impression of a commercial property agency that cares about their occupiers or that will go the extra mile to find them the best property which suits their requirements.
- Professionalism: If you reply to say the property is sold or that you are no longer dealing with the property this is likely to give the impression that your records and advertising is out of date. This will not give the professional ‘on top of everything’ image you are probably striving for.
- Opportunities missed: Simple one line replies such as those above don’t make the most of the opportunity you have to engage a new occupier. You have an occupier in front of you who is looking for a property, although you may not be able to fill their requirement now do they go away knowing who you are and what you can offer them? Will they contact you in the future? If they receive one of the replies above, the answer is probably ‘no’ and you have missed an opportunity.
How Can You Make the Most of Your Email Replies?
- Introduce yourself and your agency. This does not need to be long, just enough to ensure the occupier knows who you are, what you can offer and how they can contact you in future. This could be a pre-written email which you simply attach the necessary property details to when an enquiry comes in.
- Make sure that when you say you are sending an attachment you actually send one. If may be worthwhile noting in the text of the email what you will be attaching, therefore the occupier will know exactly what they should be receiving and can ask for anything that is missing.
- Keep your property advertising up to date to avoid occupiers contacting you about a property that is no longer available. This will save their time as well as yours.
- If you are contacted about a property that is no longer available or which you are no longer representing reply to the occupier and tell them this but go the extra mile and send them a list of similar vacant properties which you are currently marketing. There is still the opportunity for a sale here even if the initial enquiry does not work out so make the most of it.
- Most importantly of all, reply to them with something! You are never going to make the most of an enquiry if they hear nothing from you.
If you have any more examples of what not to say in an email or for more information about how NovaLoca can help you find occupiers for your commercial property please contact the NovaLoca customer services team on 01767 313380 or email info@novaloca.com.
