Real estate agents have a tough job, but putting customer service first will guarantee a great client experience and lead to referrals, great reviews, and more. However, a negative or inattentive attitude can quickly cost you clients and have your clients looking for a better agent for their needs. Here are some surefire ways to lose clients as a real estate agent.

Be Condescending

Your clients hire you for your expertise and guidance through one of the biggest transactions of their lives. While they do want your input and opinions, a know it all attitude can be a serious turn off.

Find the right balance between telling your clients nothing and telling your clients what to do. Do tell them about neighborhood amenities, comparable home prices, and home features. Do not push them into making the wrong decision or treat them like they don’t know anything.

Ignore Client Budgets

If a client has a $300,000 budget, don’t get their hopes up by showing them $350,000 homes that they can’t afford. It is okay to show homes within a range of prices, but make that range very clear when talking to your client and do not deviate outside of that range without a very good reason.

In some markets, you may be able to get away with a lower offer that brings a home into the client’s budget. Showing them a home far outside of their price range is a waste of their times and yours and will have them on the hunt for someone else to help with their search for the perfect home.

Overlook Needs and Wants

If a client is insistent on a three-car garage, you know they won’t be happy with a home that has only one space. The number of bedrooms, a yard, and some other home features that are not easily changed should eliminate or add homes to the list of potentials.

Smaller requests like the location of a laundry room and new appliances might fall into a gray zone, but major requests and absolute needs and wants should not be ignored.

Delay Responding to Client Questions

When a client sends you an email, text message, or calls you on the phone, always answer and respond as quickly as possible. It is reasonable that you won’t answer while in a meeting, during meals, or late at night. Outside of those times, however, you should generally respond as immediately as possible.

Slow communications are frustrating for home shoppers, and a slow reply about a home that a client likes could be the difference between a successful purchase or a missed opportunity. In particularly competitive real estate markets, quick communication is even more important.

Put Your Needs Before Your Clients

A friend shared a story about a rotten real estate agent in California who showed up an hour late to an appointment with no call and arrived in slightly more than tipsy condition after a long liquid lunch. That agent was a former professional athlete who thought real estate would be an easy way to make money and put his own needs before client needs.

Don’t be a rotten agent. If your priority isn’t your clients, it is time to find a new job. If you regularly put yourself first and your clients second, you won’t have any clients anyway. Word will get out and they will know to look elsewhere. A string of negative Yelp, Facebook, and Google reviews is not forgiving.

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