Not only is the Education Team celebrating the arrival of 2010, but we are also celebrating our website’s 1st Birthday!  Our ‘baby’ is growing up…(wiping tear from eye).

A huge thank-you to everyone who has visited our site, provided feedback, and used the resources we enjoy creating and maintaining.  To kick off the new year and our January birthday month of celebrations, we are unveiling our new Education Session offering and schedule.  The previous Education Sessions have been revamped, a few added, and a few will be moved to video resources in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for more enhancements, birthday celebrations, and announcements throughout January.  In the meantime…Happy New Year!

One of our most valued assets is the quality of support our Customer Care team provides to our members.  With the tremendous expansion of our member base, comes an according influx of support requests to our Customer Care Team.  Let me tell you – these guys and girls deserve a HUGE applause.  You may have noticed longer wait times on the phone or via email, but that is because over the past month, our support team has received nearly double the amount of requests they normally receive.  Just how many emails and phone calls have they received?  Compared to an average of 800 phone calls and 1000 emails per week, over the past month our amazing team is has seen upwards of 6000 emails this month and nearly 1200 phone calls per week.

I know from spending two years with the Customer Care team that at times it can get overwhelming when it gets busy.  As a Customer Care Representative, you want to provide members with the highest quality of support in the quickest amount of time; after all, REALTORS® are business people, and their time is valuable.  When the volume of support requests is higher, it can be more challenging to resolve and answer issues in a shorter time period, as you do not want to sacrifice quality.  Our Customer Care team has been nothing short of spectacular in handling all of these requests.

If you have the chance to communicate with any Point2 Customer Care Representative via telephone or email, please keep in mind the hard work and determination this extraordinary group puts into their work each and every day.

Also, to buffer our support team we also have posted tons of helpful resources which are available on the Point2 Education site.  There you will find various resources including video tutorials and live educational sessions that can help you make the most out of your Point2 Agent account.

Finally, we love hearing from you, so keep your questions, concerns, or comments rolling in.  If you are ever in contact with a member of our Customer Care team, we welcome all comments – good or bad – and make an effort to make sure they reach the ears of the appropriate person within the walls of Point2.

Some of our members may have noticed a change in the titles of those who help answer your Point2 Agent account-related questions.  Previously, the name of the team that our members were served by was the Customer Support Team.  Recently, they’ve changed their name to better reflect the relationship they build with our customers and are now the Customer Care Team.

Our Customer Care Team of 25 individuals are responsible for providing the first-line of support to our entire membership.  Not only are they answering issues that come in via email, telephone, and on the Message Board, but they are proactive in detecting any potential issues before they can affect our members.

On average, approximately 1000 email support issues are sent into our Customer Care Team on a weekly basis.  Our Customer Care Team strives to provide 24-hour response time for all members.  In addition to emails, they receive hundreds of phone calls each week (an average of 800!!!) from our Professional and Premium members.

As the team is continually expanding to provide the best level of support care to our growing membership, they had outgrown their previous office space.  So, they’ve been relocated to a newly renovated portion of the Point2 office building in Saskatoon, SK.  Last week saw them settling into their new space with a ‘house warming’ BBQ for the entire Point2 staff.

The Customer Care Team is a huge part of what makes Point2 Agent such a great success!

Just recently, he also mentioned a service called TweetBeep that allows you to set up notifications when anyone on Twitter uses specific words in their tweets.  For example, I set up my TweetBeep to notify me anytime the word ‘Point2′ is used in Twitter. 

I think it is in human nature to want to know what people are saying about you, and these types of social media tools certainly help us keep tabs on our reputation.  But, it can actually provide a benefit to your business as well by helping you connect with your customers and engage them.

Imagine this: As a customer, you are unhappy with the service you received from a company.  You mention your disappointment casually on your blog or social network of choice.  The following day (or maybe even that afternoon) you receive an email or phone call from that very company to apologize and expressing interest in making things right.  How would you feel after that?

Or, on the flip side of that coin, if you mentioned something you felt was outstanding about a service received or product you have used, and the company called you to say ‘Thanks!’ and give you some love by way of free products/services, how would you feel after that?

I certainly don’t mean to suggest that everyone begin tweeting, commenting, and blogging about every negative or positive experience they have in the hopes of getting props and free stuff out of every company.  I guess my point is to show just how powerful social media and social networking has become in the business world.

This is no less important in the real estate business world.  If you’ve provided excellent customer service to an individual and they tell their followers on Twitter, or blog about it, it is likely you may gain some referral business from them this way.  The same goes for any negative feedback that might surface on the internet about you.  You might lose some business if it goes unchecked.  Do you know what is being said about you?  Do you take it a step further and engage those who have something to say about you?

Real estate is a customer-service oriented business and it makes perfect sense to interact with and engage your customers at the same level they are at.  You better believe that the likelihood of your customers using Twitter and other social media tools is growing daily.  Consider that Twitter recently reached over 1 billion ‘tweets’, has about 1.45 million unique visitors, and boasts some pretty impressive numbers.

Make sure you don’t neglect the opportunity to truly engage your customers with the help of social media.  I welcome everyone to share your experiences of how social media has impacted your real estate business and how you have been able to use social media to engage your customers.

I am sure everyone agrees with me when I say that almost everything is online, super hi-tech, cutting edge and revolutionary in our day and age – including real estate.  Of course, as a software tech company who develops products for real estate professionals and MLS’s, you won’t hear us complaining about real estate becoming more hi-tech.

Sometimes the tendency to rely solely on cutting edge products and technology can lead to inadvertently alienating your consumers and leaving them feeling devoid of the personal touch.  I’ve been a huge fan of connecting with your customers lately and I think in any generation that connection is a huge aspect of successful business.

In fact, here at Point2 we took a bit of an old-school approach recently to connect with some of our current and future customers in our preparations for attending NAR in Orlando.  We decided we’d send out postcards.  Yep, that’s right, postcards.  We chose to use this method to connect with some of our key contacts prior to NAR.  We timed the postcards to arrive right before our contacts would be leaving for NAR.  In this way, we hoped that Point2 would still be fresh in their minds.  We also chose an old-school method versus sending a timely email because we recognize that in our day and age many emails go unread, especially by busy real estate professionals and executives.  A flashy professional postcard arriving in your mailbox is more likely to at least get a glance and maybe even a read where an email might not.

Thanks to technology and a great company called Expresscopy, we were able to do ‘old-school’ with a twist.  We were able to time a postcard delivery to a list of our contacts with one of the easiest systems out there.  Everything is done online, including designing the postcard itself – and the design possibilities are endless.  Expresscopy takes care of everything, from printing the postcards based on your design, to addressing them, and even mailing them to arrive in time for your set delivery date.  The best part is this bit of old-school marketing with the aid of technology was still really inexpensive.  (By the way, through Point2 you can get a sweet deal at Expresscopy – 100 free jumbo postcards or equivalent - but just make sure you use our link to get the deal.)  Expresscopy has a whole section of postcard designs devoted to real estate.

Sending postcards is just one method of old-school marketing that can be re-energized for today’s hi-tech world.  There are many others.  I’d really like to hear what other types of marketing you real estate professionals are doing that may be a reinvention of old-school practices.

Tell us your experiences.  We can kick it old-skool together.

As sad as it is to admit, most people will recall endless telephone-menus, hold times with irritating “muzak”, and robotic customer service representatives who may or may not have a hard-to-place accent.

Which is a shame really. For a fair percentage of consumers, customer service is the only human interaction that they will have with the company whose product they have purchased. As social creatures, if the experience we receive is abysmal, it isn’t a stretch to imagine we would project that experience onto the company in question and the products they sell.

Remember though – this projection is a two-way street. Consumers are just as likely to form a favorable opinion of a company/service/product if they receive stellar customer service.

Case in point. Last night I called UPS’s toll-free number to inquire about overnight shipping rates. Before I even dialed the number, I had put aside a good half hour of time to devote to being put on hold and waiting for a representative, and put on my firm, assertive, “don’t mess with me” voice (something that doesn’t really come naturally those who know me will tell you). I then took a few deep, calming breaths, and dialed; this is what happened:

*phone rings twice and then there is a click*

Voice: Hi! This is Jay. How can I help you?

Me: *obviously dumbfounded* Uh hi…is this UPS?

Jay: Sure is, what can I help you with this evening sir?

Me: Oh, uh, can you tell me what it would cost to ship some documents from Saskatoon to Toronto overnight?

Jay: Certainly. That would be… *he then goes on to explain all my options*

Me: Alright, that sounds perfect. Thanks!

Jay: No problem, is there anything else I can do for you this evening?

Me: Nope, that’s it for now.

Jay: Sure thing. If there is anything else we can do for you, or answer any more questions feel free to give us a call anytime. Have a good night Chris.

Me: You too Jay.

Now that is customer service! The whole process took a painless two whole minutes; he answered my questions without any fluff, didn’t try to up-sell me, was friendly, prompt, and even used my name once I gave it to him. All of this and I wasn’t even a customer, just a guy with a question.

Needless to say, the next time I have to ship a package, UPS will be in the forefront of my mind because of the positive experience I had with Jay.

Is your customer service making as big of an impression on consumers as Jay’s did for me? Or, have you ever experienced customer service which made you question the company you were dealing with? I’d love to hear your experiences.