We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
152 - Breaking The Silence On The Customer Experience with Sean Scoffield
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Join us this week as we sit down with Sean Scoffield, a seasoned expert in real estate and team leadership who has experienced the customer journey firsthand through his 14 moves in 19 years. In our insightful conversation, Sean sheds light on the often-overlooked aspects of customer experience from when a property is sold to the final settlement.
With a robust background in sales and marketing, Sean has a wealth of knowledge in building engaged and effective teams. He shares his strategies for transforming clients into raving fans and creating tremendous business success. Whether you're a real estate professional looking to elevate your customer experience or simply curious about the intricacies of client relationships in the industry, this episode is packed with valuable insights.
Tune in to discover how to break the silence on customer experience and enhance every step of your client's journey! Don't miss this opportunity to learn from someone who has dedicated his career to improving how we think about and manage customer interactions.
Listen now and take your customer experience to the next level!
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson Course. Today's podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, Nexar. Nexar is a dedicated real estate platform specializing in lead generation and database management of the entire real estate company for BDMs and agents. Working as one platform to generate opportunity. Nexar seamlessly integrates into your business systems, allowing you to have an extended solution. Let's get started with this week's episode. Let's get started with this week's episode. Joining me today, from an international management perspective, is Sean Schofield.
Speaker 2:Sean welcome aboard. Thanks, Lee. It's a pleasure to be here and hi to all your audience.
Speaker 1:And listen to that beautiful accent as I say international leadership and management. Sean, give us your background.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it's a bit of a mixed up accent. My dad was Scottish, my grandparents were from Finland. I was born in Canada and I moved out when I was 14. So that's 36 years ago. I've been living in Australia now.
Speaker 1:That makes you the perfect combination for sales leadership and marketing, which has been your background in many industries. I know now you'll come over to the real estate industry, but prior to that, what were you leading and managing in sales?
Speaker 2:Well, I moved out of home when I was about 15 years old and I found myself working in kitchens and in restaurant floors and I just loved hospitality, getting to meet new customers every night and the family formations that we had in the kitchens and the staff. I just felt really at home with that and I found myself over the next couple of years moving very fast into senior management positions and became one of the youngest licensees for at that time which was Foster's Group, later bought by Woolworths Managing teams of upward to 50 people at the age of 23, I think it was at the time and managing multi-million dollars worth of revenue coming in through multiple departments within the venues. So I think tourism and hospitality and food and beverage was my groundwork for really understanding what makes people tick.
Speaker 1:When you're managing teams and if we bring it into a perspective of real estate, you've got an owner and a vision, you've got the people on the ground and quite often there's a disconnect between what the owner wants, what the team thinks, and this is where sales leadership and leadership and marketing really has that middle ground. How have you been able to solve that in the past, to bring everyone onto the one page?
Speaker 2:Yeah, spot on, and in fact, that's how I based my earlier career. I found myself being put into venues that were underperforming and turning them around in a short amount of time we're talking a matter of months and what I began to realize was that there was a pattern here and I was the common denominator and that I was the one that was turning it around. But what was the cause behind it? Was that disconnect, as you just mentioned, that the previous management or leadership and that of which the people are working and the customers within there was just no connection of vision, of communication, training, education, support. That's what we had to put in place was to make sure that everybody felt supported and was clear about what it is that we're trying to achieve and what success looked like.
Speaker 1:Well, our snack topic of today is the listed to settled customer experience, and you and I were chatting off air about this today, in that in the real estate space and if we look at the real estate sales space first, you've done a great job, the campaign, you got a great result, everyone's excited, the sold sticker goes on and then it goes silent and in between exchange and settlement, that is your peak time for referral. It's your peak time for method of introduction to be passed on into the community of what a great job you did. But unfortunately and I'm not saying this to upset anyone listening today if that silence happens and then the next thing that happens is we're a couple of days away from settlement and unfortunately Sean the agent rings up and says oh, they want to do a pre-settlement inspection. What's that? You didn't tell me they were coming back through, and this whole grand finale ends really bad. And then they see the disbursement of the fees and quite often a consumer will say I will never, ever use that company again.
Speaker 1:And what we've got here is just this miscommunication, no checklist of moments. And moments are when you ring up and you don't have anything to inform them about, but you're just checking in and they see you as a human being. But you're just checking in and they see you as a human being From your perspective and I really want to look at what moments we can create and leverage from those moments in the real estate space. But before I get into that now I've set the scene for it I've got to ask you, sean, when you landed in the real estate industry just take us into how you came into real estate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the time I was working for a little well-known wine company called Oyster Bay Wines Australian's top selling wine and I got a phone call from Connect Now and they're saying I don't suppose you'd ever want to consider leaving the wine industry, and how glamorous it is. And I said, well, tell me about the role. Because at that age I was thinking maybe I need less hangovers, maybe I need to be outside of an industry with strong egos and personalities that I was experiencing in food and beverage operations. And I went, okay, yeah, the real estate industry I'm sure that doesn't have any of that Well out of the pot into the frying pan, but I loved it. It was a team that was needing to grow again and I loved the challenge for it and real estate and the energy side of what Connect Now offers. It was actually two industries for the price of one, so I thought it would be a great learning opportunity for myself as well.
Speaker 1:What was your observations of the real estate industry from a leadership management perspective, of working with some very big corporate companies there and then coming into this small style real estate office corner office? Yes, we've got the big offices, but Australia is just basically a lot of small business owners who are giving a crack and doing the best they can with what they have. What did you learn from that? I think what.
Speaker 2:I learned, was not to trust your initial I guess, perceived conceptions of others. So, for whatever reason, sometimes real estate industry could be tarnished with a brush. Oh dude, can we trust agents? Or it's all cutthroat and people are going to pull the rug out and it's very superficial.
Speaker 2:These are just some of the comments I heard from some people, but very quickly, when I stepped into the industry, I was actually reminded of how passionate, how caring, how supportive, all of these mom and dad's bricks and mortar businesses and even the larger corporations and franchises. They were just all incredibly warming and welcoming and it did remind me that I had forgotten that many years ago, when I was about six years old, my mom did a stint in real estate and it just brought back all these memories about how hard she worked, and as a single mom, to bring me along to the open homes as well and take me through the homes and just stay here and be quiet, and I forgot how hardworking they really are and in that sense I don't think anything's changed. The passion's still there, the hardworking, the purpose, the mission. Everyone I've talked to is just incredibly talented and just want to do the best for themselves, their family and their clients.
Speaker 1:So ConnectNow. A lot of people know on the surface what it does, but they don't really know the full extent of how it integrates into the customer experience and how the agents can have a better experience for the buyers and the sellers. But take us through how does it work and where do you see it fitting into the sold to settlement process?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And now this is the moment where I say, if you're a sales agent or sales associate listening, don't run away now, because a lot of people think that a utility connections company like ConnectNow is only for property management. It's not, and for quite a few years over five years we've been actually looking after home connections for the home sales side as well, for both vendors and buyers, and what we came to learn very quickly is that for home buyers, when they're going through that nervousness of putting an offer in an exchange of contracts and that's where we would typically pick up that conversation is congratulations on putting your offer in, Want to confirm that your settlement dates here. We're going to make sure that you move in with the lights on and we're going to be with you every step of the way. That benefit was outstanding because, as you mentioned before at the top of the podcast, is that sometimes agents, they get that sale and they're off. The thrill of the chase is gone and they're off looking for another sale. Right or wrong, I get it I'm in sales too and that thrill of the chase and excitement is like great. I want to feed my endorphins and go and get it again.
Speaker 2:But what about the customer care and that's where we come in. We can plug that gap and we do it very well because we know this. We have an NPS program. I'm assuming your audience knows about MPS, but it's a score of minus 100 to 100 based on their service of experience with yourself. And we see many banks, financial institutions, insurance companies they're about minus 40, minus 60, but a lot of great brands like Dyson, Volkswagen, Netflix, Google they're around 60, 70, and 80.
Speaker 2:Our homebuyers are constantly rating us, scoring us above 70. Our homebuyers are constantly rating us, scoring us above 70. That's world-class. And when we ask them to leave a comment, it's not always about the Connect Now service of making sure all their connections are on and how we made them settle into their new home with the lights on and feeling good, but they actually talk about how much they appreciated that they were referred to us. From the agent that, my friend, becomes a pre-qualified testimony you can take to your next listing appointment and that's worth far more than a rebate that you might get through a service like ours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting thing because we think of the service and yet that's got to happen. But it's the experience. So take me on a simulation. I'm an agent, I've just sold a property, meaning it's exchanged, it's not settled, and what do I do to pass over. And then what interaction do you have with the consumer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for an agent and, let's be honest, it's probably the sales associate that's getting lumped with their contracts and following up the little elements. It's a 30 second conversation at best, just to say we want to make sure that you move in with the lights on into your new home. We partner with Connect Now. It's a utilities connections company which will handle all your essential services in one phone call in about 20 minutes, and it's a free service that we provide here because we want to look after you. And if they consent to that, the details can be easily passed to us, either through our API integrations with many CRM systems or through our online portal. We'll pick that up and we'll call them within a couple of hours, usually within the hour, congratulate them on the sale of their home, confirming the settlement date and establishing touch points as we get closer to that, to make sure all of their home connections things like electricity, gas, telco, their Foxtel are all ready to go, so that they can have that smooth moving experience when they move in.
Speaker 2:How many touch points would there be? Well, we generally say there's about six. You know from the time that we get the lead, and that's probably including the SMS and the emails just confirming everything along the way. But we don't want to over inundate them. You them. It's a stressful time. We just want them to feel supported and that everything's organized. But typically it's in and around that.
Speaker 1:But what I like about this is it's six touch points about their brand new home that they're moving into. And moving in with the lights on is really a great concept, but the agent set that up. So the whole experience has been a good one to deal with and for everyone listening, that's how it should be. It's amazing how the leverage or the adjacent space to you can take so much pressure off you, whereas if it relies on you making the phone call, you chasing up, you doing it, there's a high chance it may not happen. And suddenly we've got a scenario that I've heard anything from the agent since the solstice going on and I don't know what to do next. I don't even know about the and people do panic. There's a lot of anxiety in the world right now. So even having those six touch points, it's six nil, isn't it? Versus nothing was happening prior to that inspection going through. So that's really good in how that works.
Speaker 1:What's been some of the reactions from the purchasers? Because you're getting the testimonial, the NPS score is absolutely phenomenal, but separate to it just being a connections company because they don't pay for that. That's done. Separate, it's just an introduction for that supplier to be done. Why do the purchasers respond in such a great way?
Speaker 2:I think it's. You know, success through proximity is what we're talking about here. Right, it's about managing the expectations or, I guess, exceeding the expectations, because a lot of people know when they're buying a house and that sold sticker goes on and they're just feeling nervous and apprehensive. It's like what happens next. It's not about the service as such. It's you know, let's face it, doing electricity and gas, telco, foxo, all the other range services, that's not particularly sexy, but we make it easy and I think that's where the difference is One phone call, we have it done in about 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:I'll give you an example I've moved 14 times in 19 years. Wow, that's a hell of a lot of times to move. In fact, in the last three moves I've only used a utility connections company like ConnectNow, and what was funny is that the other times that the other 11 odd times I estimate it took me about four, four and a half hours on each one of those moves to organize all my connections. Now, admittedly, technology is making a little bit easier out there, but it's still a hell of a lot longer than what we're currently able to deliver at the moment. Now, if I add up those 11 times and that four hours. That's almost two days of my life. I'm never going to get back that.
Speaker 2:I spent in call centers and calling multiple people. I got better things to do with my time, and that's where I think that what we're bringing is we make it easy, it's free, but it's also reassurance. It's that comfort level of oh okay, I've talked to someone, I've organized everything. If and when this goes through, I know I'm sorted on the other side of this, so it's just about setting that comfort. I think that's what we're hearing most when we get NPS feedback. It's, I just felt, comfortable and guided and supported throughout the whole process. Now, conversely, if we ever got a negative comment but it's not relating to our service and it's relating to an agent experience we are armed with those comments, so we can go straight back to our partners and let them know about it, so they can get on top of it before the next barbecue, when they're getting talked about and perhaps the way they don't want to be talked about For sure.
Speaker 1:So, sean, with your leadership experience, sales experience, working with sales teams, which is a big job, I think a lot of people well, actually, only a couple of weeks ago, mark Kentwell was on the program discussing the director of sales role, and it's not a paddock that people think it is.
Speaker 1:It's the hardest gig in the shop. Now that you're in real estate, where do you think the real estate industry needs to go next to be in the best place they can for the agent to leverage, be it technology services? Today we're talking about listed to settled, all those things you can do, and if they're slicing a phone call in between your phone calls to say, just making sure everything's on track, all your connections are good, yeah, great, excellent. And, by the way, have you booked a pre-settlement inspection on the house you're buying? What's that? It's this, and the one on your place is going to be on the 12th and you're far better to introduce it that way. A well-informed consumer is easier to manage, a well-informed vendor is easy to manage, but from your international perspective, where's it going to go from here or where does it need to go from here?
Speaker 2:I think that we still have a long way to go to meet the consumer, the buyers and the vendors where they want to be met. I still think that we dictate a lot in the way that we want to do business. I think technology and artificial intelligence will certainly help us do that, but there is still a gap within the industry where I think we need to get over our own way and shift that perspective to our customers and really look at it from their perspective. It's not about us, it's about them. So let's meet them where they want to be met. So that's point number one.
Speaker 2:Number two I think that there's not just ConnectNow, but of all the Prop tech solutions out there, there's so much savings. Now, I know that tech stacks can be, you know, a skyrocketing cost when you get them wrong, but in most cases, I still see real estate agents with multiple tech solutions within their business that are doing the same functions. I think, investing some time to understand the tech solutions you already have in your business and maximizing those and getting help and learning from others that are doing it well, I'm amazed that your tech stack that you have set up for yourself. I would love to see something like that for the real estate industry getting smarter about what we're doing and how we're working with our customers from their perspective, not ours how we're working with our customers from their perspective, not ours.
Speaker 1:And this happened last week on the podcast when we were discussing AI, of how mature agents suit AI more than the young agents.
Speaker 1:Because now they're going to be able to well, soon they're going to be able to walk up to the CRM and say I need the best buyers between 350 and 4 million or 1 million to 1.5 that live in this suburb that I've done an appraisal for or an assessment, and I need them on a list so I can call them and send them all a text saying I'm about to call them.
Speaker 1:That's possible now that you don't need to be the whiz-bang clicker. Know your way around the software. Our future is about learning prompting. How do we prompt the tech to do what we need it to do versus, like I know, in search, we're just developing for the Complete Snack app right now. Ask Lee, so you'll go to the Complete Snack app and, instead of navigating around the thousands of assets, you'll say hey, Lee, what prospecting scripts do you have for lead generation in an area for community-based marketing? And those snacks will come up or they're emailed to you because you can just talk to it and search for AI is phenomenal, yeah absolutely, and that's going to work in all of our different platforms.
Speaker 2:I was talking to someone just recently a business owner in a product development industry, and he made a very astute observation is that so many software programs out there are trying to create AI solutions within their current existing software. I don't think that that's actually going to be the answer, and I think the person that's going to understand that artificial intelligence could sit and integrate with all and bring the solutions back into one place, such as that palm in the hand moment that you just talked about, place such as that palm in the hand moment that you just talked about, that's going to be a winner, because that's how people want to use AI in the moments that matter most to them, whether it's eight o'clock, sitting on the couch or driving to work and having a chat with a bot and getting the information. That's what's going to win.
Speaker 1:Well, the listed to settled process needs mapping out, including the moments for connections, which is so important to the consumer, and again it's about them, it's not about us leveraging into that. And I've been doing a lot of work of late where I've been recording the entire sales process of a business, and this is a good use of AI. So I've been working with the administration teams to say how do we sell a house around here, which is a very confusing question for a lot of AI. So I've been working with the administration teams to say how do we sell a house around here, which is a very confusing question for a lot of people. But once we record it, that's the original artist, We've got that audio, we transcribe it, we throw it into AI and create a sales procedure. But a lot of companies don't have an up-to-date sales procedure. There's one from 1985 and the older we get, the better we remember ourselves and it says in the sales procedure send fax to solicitor. So I am concerned about that.
Speaker 1:But we look at this and all you've got is the customer experience and repeating that performance, repeating that performance and that there's 138 actions from listed to settled and the connections. One has been missed. And when you and I were chatting about another topic today, which actually in the property management space, I said come into the studio, we need to discuss this one and I think it's just a great simple thing that people can include. And, Sean, and welcome to the real estate industry. I think having you on board now, you can contribute back from other industries and we say that on this show all the time. You can't read the label from inside the jar. And having someone like yourself come into our space but you've come from different spaces where it's a far bigger setup to do it that's how we get that progress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this isn't again just with Connect Now. If you're going to invest just 45 minutes a week, and just choose one part of your business where you can fine tune, because a lot of the answers are already there. We don't need to go running and be distracted by AI or looking for the next shiny ball. Let's focus about what you do have and how you can optimize, maximize that. For instance, I went and spent some time with the real estate agents up at the coast there and their performance was well below to where they could be and that was affecting their customer experience well below to where they could be and that was affecting their customer experience. It was affecting their revenue generation and their staff morale and engagement was also suffering because of it.
Speaker 2:In just 45 minutes of working with them, we managed to turn that business around to quadruple their earnings, staff engagements up. We're having fun now like more fun than ever before, and that was just 45 minutes. So if you're thinking about how you can use a PropTech solution and maximize that, just reach out to your contact. If it's ConnectNow, reach out to myself and I'll put you in touch with the BDM or AE that looks after you. But just start looking at your business from a new light. I think, sean, absolutely excellent episode.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for joining us and we look forward after you. But just start looking at your business from a new light, I think, sean. Absolutely excellent episode.
Speaker 2:I want to thank you for joining us and we look forward to hearing from you in the future. Thanks so much, Lee. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Cheers. Today's episode of we Are Selling was brought to you by Nexar. Nexar is the platform that is now partnering and delivering best-in-class real estate growth solutions that continue to perform over time. The Nexar platform has now partnered with some of our leading principals and teams in Australia. They are assisting with the lead generation engine of the company, agent loyalty and the growth of the rent roll through connective communication. Nexar is doing the heavy lifting on nurturing your database to generate a pipeline for your agents and BDMs to convert to listings, sales and new managements. Check the show notes and the link to episode 116, where there was a feature interview with Mr Mark Kempwell. Thank you for listening. I look forward to speaking to you next week. My name's Lee Woodward. Goodbye.