Friday Morning Rant: Feedback, Schmeedback!

The following is copied from an actual message I sent in response to the third consecutive e-mail request for feedback on a house that I toured last weekend. Please keep in mind that full-time real estate agents, like me, commonly look at dozens of homes in any given week. Why? Because that is part of the job.  A good agent knows the inventory in his or her market…

• “Hi Rob, Thank you for showing the property at 1234 ABC St (Ed. note: NOT a real address). I really appreciate your professionalism. So how did your clients like the property? Please take a second and complete my Showing Feedback survey. It’s super quick. Just click the link to the right and it will take you to my 30-second survey…”

• “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! I already did it! Please, for the love of all things holy and sacred, CALL OFF YOUR DOGS!!!!!! This is the third notice about this house! Do you have any idea how many houses I look at each week?!! I get these e-mails from almost every one of them…That adds up to dozens, if not hundreds of messages clogging up my inbox. I understand that you need feedback…I really do. But please, show me a little kindness and sympathy…just ask once. I may not respond…and that’s just how life is sometimes. There are ups and downs, highs and lows…triumphs and defeats. And yet, the strong among us manage to rise again with each passing morning and fight another day… This is a tough business, real estate. I know we need all the help we can get… I promise you this, though: spam does not pave the road to success.

• “Wow”

• “I appreciate your brevity. It offsets my tendency to be overly wordy…”

I think other agents will tell you that I am a pleasure to work with*. The fact is, it is tough out there for real estate agents, especially in Bellingham, where agents comprise roughly 38% of the total population. Sellers are commonly desperate, scared and needy, constantly looking for updates and feedback about why their home isn’t selling, leaving their agents scrambling to provide intelligence. With the recent invention of electronic mail, automation has swept the industry. Services like www.showingfeedback.com offer automated surveys that blast out to any agents that have shown a particular property, based on the signatures left by those agents’ electronic keys or simply from information input from business cards left in the home.  These are designed to simplify the process and provide the needed information quickly and easily….which is fine, as long as there is only a single attempt made. This is not, after all, the US Census. The fates of governments and school children do not hang in the balance of the survey’s outcome. Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your house just isn’t significant on a National scale…

One more thought on “Showing Feedback”… It is pretty typical for agents to call or email me 3 or 4, maybe even 10 days after a given showing. My memory does not work like a hard-drive. Information doesn’t just sit there indefinitely…If I go through 15 houses in one day with a buyer, the details of particular homes tend to blur together. If you want to know whether or not my client liked the home, try checking your fax machine or your email for an offer. No offer = no likey.

*For the record…I am actually a very nice guy…I spent a week away from coffee before today…then had about a gallon. I was jumpy and may have overreacted somewhat…I get excited sometimes. The agent with whom I dealt in this situation was a great sport and completely understood that I was kidding…we are now best friends.

Thanks for reading! Please leave comments or suggestions below, e-mail me at rob.leroy@exprealty.com, or call me at 206.883.6668 …and yes, you CAN hire me as your real estate agent!

Rob LeRoy is a Seattle real estate agent and social media marketing coach with eXp Realty.