Should this be a secret?
There's an age-old problem in the real estate industry! I guess there are many; however this problem is if you should tell your clients that you're going out of town? How much information it is too much information for your clients? Since we live in an age of instant communications with cell phones and computers it is now possible to be away from your client in another town, state, or country. The bugaboo becomes Murphy's Law, which is, if something is going to happen it's going to be while you're out of town.
Most of us cover ourselves with another associate or assistant that will take care of any problems. Some say the can't afford to pay for another agents time; I can't afford not to.
How does this make your client feel especially when you haven't told them you are going to be out of town? How would you feel if the roles were reversed? You spend months nurturing each client in a trusting relationship but I know several agents who won't tell their clients anything about their personal life. I have watched several occasions businesses weather out of town are on vacation, 80% of the time nothing happens. It's that other 20% of the time it becomes an agent's nightmare.
If the other agent hasn't told their client that they are leaving town you are usually the blunt of anger or accusations. If the other agents instructions are poor and is not a very good bookkeeper, you could end up almost rewriting a whole contract. Especially if you can't reach them for some period of time. Now that's scary!
If I'm going to be gone longer than a day or two and I'm leaving the area; I always tell my clients about my plans and who is backing me up. Most of the time this is okay however there are cases when a client is caught in an awkward moment and anger follows. It might not be anything you've done but this is the last straw and stress explodes all over you. What are you going to do?
Should this be a secret?
Thank you for reading my blog post! This post was authored and photo taken by Paul Henderson, © 2014, all rights reserved. All information is deemed reliable however it should be independently verified by the reader. Any reproduction of this blog post is prohibited without the prior written permission of the author.
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