27 Jun How to Maintain Client Relationships

The core of any Real Estate Manager’s job is building and maintaining strong client relationships. Establishing trust, providing exceptional service, and staying connected with clients is essential in securing repeat business and referrals.  

Yet when it comes to maintaining client relationships, clients can often prove challenging. It’s also difficult to juggle more than one or two clients, and Property Managers are expected to manage a long list of clients at once. To help, we’ve put together key actionable strategies you may like to employ to help maintain fruitful client relationships in an ever-evolving industry. 

Prioritise Effective Communication 

Clear and effective communication lies at the heart of maintaining client relationships for real estate professionals. Prioritise active listening by paying full attention to your client’s needs, concerns and goals.   

Utilise a range of communication channels, such as email, phone calls, social media and in-person meetings, to stay connected and accessible to your clients. It is also important to ask your clients for their preferred method of communication to ensure effective engagement. The age and demographic of each client can help determine what communication methods are most effective, but simply asking clients what they prefer is beneficial to you and demonstrates to them that you care about their individual needs. 

Provide Exceptional Service 

Go above and beyond to exceed your clients’ expectations. Offering personalised attention will make your clients feel valued throughout the entire process, strengthening your relationship. Additionally, ensure you promptly respond to inquiries, provide thorough and accurate information and follow up on every request or concern they may raise.  

Ultimately, by delivering exceptional customer service, you establish a reputation for reliability and professionalism that will resonate with clients – and word will get around! Here are a few things to consider to up your service game: 

• Onboarding: Consider creating an onboarding process for new clients that has them on board from day one. Perhaps you like meeting clients for coffee to establish a close relationship or mailing them a gift to show appreciation. Aside from this, ensure that clear communication is established from the beginning of the process! 
• Regular check-ins: Even if you establish open communication from the onboarding process, some clients may hesitate to reach out – or don’t think to. If you haven’t heard from a client in a while, don’t be afraid to check in to ensure everything is swimmingly! 

• The little things count: Small things, such as remembering important dates (i.e. birthdays and anniversaries) and reaching out with personalised messages, also demonstrate that you see your clients as individuals you genuinely care about.

Embrace Technology 

Don’t underestimate the power of technology to help you maintain client relationships. Consider utilising customer relationship management (CRM) software to track client interactions, set follow-up reminders, and maintain a centralised database of client information.  

CRM software can often act as your ‘second brain’ in cases where it is all simply too much for one person to remember! A CRM system also ensures that your client’s data remains secure, giving you peace of mind. 

Emphasise the Importance of Safety 

When working in real estate – as a Property Manager, Leasing Manager or Business Development Manager alike – implementing proper safety measures is key. Although this may not seem important in maintaining client relationships at first glance, emphasising how much you value safety is an important step that helps instil confidence and trust in your clients.  

Do this by ensuring properties are safe, protected and compliant with relevant legislation (and keep up to date with this). Prioritising safety protects clients from potential risks and liabilities and demonstrates a genuine commitment to their welfare.  

Request Feedback and Reviews 

Feedback is paramount when it comes to growth and improvement. Regularly request feedback from your clients to gauge their satisfaction and help you identify areas where you can enhance your services. Ultimately, actively seeking and implementing feedback demonstrates your commitment to continuous improvement and increases client satisfaction. 

Start With Us 

Ultimately, real estate is about relationships – not numbers. Rather than focusing on your efforts elsewhere, ensuring you are employing strategies to retain your existing client relationships is important. By doing so, real estate professionals – from Leasing Managers to Business Development Managers – can establish a solid foundation of trust, leading to repeat business, referrals and a thriving real estate career. 

Here at Real Estate Career Developers, we understand what it takes to foster lasting client relationships in the real estate space. As a specialist Australian recruitment agency, we have access to several open Property Manager positions (and more!). If you want to strengthen your existing client relationships or build new ones (perhaps in a new position), please don’t hesitate to contact us.