In this post by my DC area colleague, James Dwoning, he laments having to call Listing Agents to make appointments to show homes to his buyer clients.  In a nutshell, his biggest beef is that if or when a Listing Agent  calls him back it's so much later that it's, well, too late.

I use a showing service myself and I love it!  It relieves me of a lot of the hassle and it creates a huge benefit for both me and the Seller. And it's a pretty nice thing for the Buyer's Agent, too.

From the Buyer Agent side:

1. I can make muliptlpe appts. with one phone call.  No chasing down listing agents or worries about closed offices.
2. I get detailed instructions about the access -- Supra, Sentrilock, combo or "someone will be home"
   
3. I get detailed instructions about the challenges -- "don't let the cats out", "dog in crate"
4. The showing service will call ahead to the Seller for me and, if the showing time turns out to be inconvienient, they'll call me back and let me know.

From the Listing Agent side:

1. I don't have to "wait by the phone" for the buyer's agents to call.  I can go about my life.
2. I don't have to worry about calling anyone back if I miss their call.
3. I can tell the service exactly what kind of access is provided.
   
4. I can have them call the Seller (on my behalf) to set the appt.  or just tell the buyer's agent to "go and show" if the property is vacant (without advertising to the world that the property is vacant).
5. They'll e-mail a form asking for feedback and, for a couple of extra bucks, actually call and speak to the Buyer's Agent voice- to-voice.
6. They have a running log of who visited the house.  This is HUGE since it allows me to show the Seller how much (or how little) activity the house has seen and gives me some validation for having the "price adjustment" conversation.

I'll be honest. When I first started interacting with the showing service as a Buyer's agent I was thinking, "This is a real pain" but it sort of grew on me.  Now, they're like cell phones and blogs. What did we ever do before them??!!!