28 Qualities, Skills and Traits That Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Clients Watch For: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Today, a review of the 28 things that commercial brokerage clients look for when choosing, working with, and firing(!) agents. Over the last week or so you've seen these lists in several posts, but I thought it would be a good idea to gather all of these ideas into one resource page that can be accessed easily.

The Lists:

Top 7 Skills and Qualities Investors Look For in a Broker:

1. Direct solicitation of potential buyers.
2. Quality communications and follow through.
3. Accuracy and quality of financial analysis.
4. Negotiation skills.
5. Quality of investment package.
6. Quality of research.
7. Team assigned to their transaction.

The Top 7 Things Tenants Look for in a Commercial Real Estate Broker:

1. Understanding of their business.
2. Open communications and accessibility.
3. A relationship built on trust and concern.
4. Financial/analytical skills and structuring advice.
5. Collaboration and a team approach to their needs.
6. Understanding of the market and opportunities.
7. Accompaniment on building tours.

The Top 7 Things Clients Look for When Selecting a Commercial Real Estate Broker:

1. Relationship with Broker.
2. Prior experience/performance.
3. Reputation of firm/brand identity.
4. Understanding of their business/objectives.
5. Personalized approach/solutions.
6. Fee structure.
7. Knowledge and advice.

The Top 7 Things That Frustrate Brokerage Clients:

1. Lack and poor quality of communications.
2. Lack of accessiblility to their broker.
3. Sloppy work, inaccuracies and poor research.
4. Feeling that they are just a commission source.
5. Brokers not knowing when they are "over their heads".
6. Lack of interest in their business needs and goals.
7. Lone Rangers and "listing-only" solutions.

So, you say, what's the point? Well, looking at each of these in turn and thinking about what they mean to existing and potential clients, we can see that there a number of solutions and, more importantly, opportunities presented in them.

I give you, The Profile of a Customer-Centric Brokerage Company. *Insert cheesy dramatic music here*

Many thanks to CEL&Associates Inc. who actually gathered the data and did the research to come up with all of these lists and the following outline of a customer-centric brokerage company.

A Customer-Centric Brokerage Company should:

1. Possess a real-time 360 degree customer profile.
2. Embrace a continuous feedback process.
3. Hardwire the voice of the customer into all decisions.
4. Invest in talen, training and professional development.
5. Share knowlege of the customer.
6. Commit to service excellence.
7. Possess customer service standards.
8. Build valued and lasting customer relationships.
9. Include customers in company values.
10. Tie commissions to customer satisfaction.
11. Celebrate those who achieve customer satisfaction.
12. Involve customers in solutions.
13. Continuously seek customer feedback.
14. Possess a thorough knowledge of customer needs.
15. Exceed customer expectations.

Some powerful, and some surprising ideas. Stay tuned for more on these topics as I plan on dissecting a number of these ideas in more detail. Have a great weekend, and let me know what you think!