Let’s say you’re shopping for a new jacket, and you pop into a clothing store.  Immediately, a salesperson comes up to assist you, asking if you need any help and what you’re looking for.  Usually, that’s a great thing, so much better than those times you go into a store and you can’t find anyone to help you because the sales clerks are all in chatting in the back or sneaking outside for s smoke break.

Sometimes, though, a sales clerk coming up to help you is just annoying.  Maybe because you’re just browsing and you’d rather just look on your own.  If you start talking to the clerk, you’re going to start feeling sales pressure – the more time she spends with you, telling you how great everything looks, the more likely you are to buy something that you don’t really need.  Or it might just be that you don’t want to waste the clerk’s time and effort when you’re not really in the mood to buy.

That is, your service experience did not depend on what the clerk did.  The clerk did the same thing BOTH TIMES.  The difference was you, and what you wanted.

Real estate clients are like that: their service experience depends not just on what you do, but what they want at the time.  The key is to figure out how your client wants to be serviced.

Now, of course, some aspects of delivering a good service experience are foundational and universal: a good attitude, product knowledge, communication, etc.  I can’t think of anyone who would want to work with an agent who doesn’t care about doing a good job, doesn’t know her stuff, or drops completely out of touch.  Even a sales clerk who jumps to assist you is useless if she doesn’t know her inventory.

But how you deliver that service experience depends on what your client is looking for.  Some clients want constant attention, and some take a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” approach.  Some want you to do all the work, and some want to look for homes on their own and send you the ones they like.  Some want to talk to you on the phone, and some would rather you just email or text them.  They’re all different, and they all have different needs.

So how do you figure out what they want?  It’s simple: ask them.  Ask them about how they want you to communicate with them.  Ask them how often they want to go out.  Ask them about what their expectations are for their sales experience. Basically, ask them what they want, and then do that.

This post is part of a series of what I call the “36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents,” a collection of short takes on the CORE concept that I’ve developed over the years of discussing and teaching the system.  We’ll count up to the 36th rule over the next few months, and then the 1/2 rule.  You can get the full list of rules by clicking on the “36-1/2 Rules for CORE Agents” category on the blog – scroll from the bottom if you want to read them in order.