“Make us look good.” 

No, that doesn’t mean free makeup for all of your realtors. Although if it keeps them loyal…

It means your realtors need you to make them look good in front of their potential buyers and sellers with speed, accuracy, and extraordinary service. If you can help them look like the best person for the job, they’ll win that deal—and you’ll win their loyalty.  

Your first chance to help your realtors “look good” is the quoting process. So here are 3 quick tips to help you provide top-tier client service that keeps your realtors “looking good” when it comes to quoting. 

Tip 1: Keep your listing agents on top of their numbers game

An inaccurate quote from your title company could be the reason your realtor loses a listing—and the reason you lose that client forever. You can’t afford that.

Here’s a simple example. A seller would think they only have one mortgage payoff therefore one single reconveyance fee. Not so fast. If that seller has a line of credit with a zero balance, then the seller needs a payoff letter and an additional reconveyance fee for that as well. 

The listing agent would have no idea about this, and not including these fees in the seller net sheet is definitely risky. It could make them look inaccurate and sloppy in front of their seller, potentially causing them to lose that deal. 

And this is just one example, not to mention back taxes owed, nuisance liens, and so on. All of these are found while you research the property before generating the seller net sheet for your agent. 

We encourage you to DO THIS WORK and be indispensable for your agent.

Tip 2: Offer to help the buyer side as well

Ever heard of the “Rule of Reciprocation?” It states that whenever you give someone a gift, they feel more inclined to reciprocate. 

Fewer and fewer title reps are generating buyer estimates for their agents, but the ones that do are usually the best reps working for the best and fastest growing title companies. 

When you offer to generate a buyer sheet, you may not only win the escrow, but you’re scoring serious customer service points.

And remember, you know more about the property and transactions than your agents do. Be that beacon of light for them and make those buyer estimates absolutely precise, not just when it comes to closing fees, but also lender fees, impounds, and tax prorations. 

Tip 3: Pick the right technology

Whatever you’re using to generate quotes needs to make your realtors look sleek, smart, and professional. If you’re still relying on Excel spreadsheets, you’re not doing your clients any favors.

If you’re looking for the right quoting technology, look out for the following:

• Speed: Don’t leave your realtors (and their potential sellers) waiting on a quote. Faster service impresses everyone. 
• Ease of use: This relates to speed. If technology is too difficult to use, your title reps will be slowed down (or not use it at all)
• Compliance: The quotes produced need to be accurate and compliant with TRID, RESPA, etc—you can’t worry about your taxes or the accuracy of the title insurance policy amounts
• Looks: Make them look good…literally. Your quotes need to be both beautiful and branded (so your realtors remember who is making them look so sleek) 
• Accessibility: Your reps need to be able to access your quoting tool from ANY device (but remember, App store-based apps will be updated far less frequently than web-based apps, meaning your accuracy could be in jeopardy) 

If you implement these three tips, you’ll be helping your real estate agents look good and building the loyal relationships that lead to repeat business. 

The post The #1 Thing Real Estate Agents Want From Their Title Company first appeared on titlecapture.com.

If you’re a title company rep or closer, don’t be afraid to share it with your boss. It’s going to greatly benefit both you, the staff, as well as the title company’s bottom line.

Now let’s get into the meat of things.

We all know that companies providing services, in order to attract and retain more clients, need to offer the absolute best customer experience.

It’s a known fact. Our company, TitleCapture, and its flagship product, the branded title company platform, help title companies provide a stellar experience to real estate agents and lenders. But we’re not talking about that in this article… So let’s move on.

No matter how much technology, no matter how many bells and whistles, gimmicks and tchotchkes you’re giving your clients, at the end of the day 80% of the customer experience is a result of your staff’s interaction with your clients.

That’s where the battle is fought. And if your staff is not able (or willing) to go all-in and offer that experience, you’re doomed. Your clients are simply going to pick up their toys and go visit your competitor down the street. And that’s a FACT.

So then HOW do you make sure your staff is on its A-game when it comes to serving your clients? How do you make sure they’re motivated? How do you build a positive internal culture that impacts your bottom line?

Simple.

Treat your employees the same way you treat your favorite customers.

Of course, you have to respect your staff, listen to them, talk about their future and provide them with opportunities to grow. Sure, you have to do all of that. Being a great leader and also making sure there’s accountability and transparency in place are the basic things that contribute to a great internal culture.

But I’m not here to give you a lecture on all of that.

Instead, I want you to focus on something that’s probably more important. Something that takes up 8 hours of their day, every day, and it could make or break your staff. And that’s their WORKFLOW.

While reading Cindy Koebele’s book “Obsess To Success” (you can find it on Amazon – I highly recommend it), I came across a very funny example, where she talks about how, at her former employer — before she started her own title company — she had to manually stamp return addresses on envelopes. Everyone hated doing that and when the staff asked for branded envelopes, they were turned down. Everyone felt that the company didn’t want to invest in professionalism and staff happiness, and the results is she (and maybe others) simply quit as soon as they could.

You need to be able to identify and remove the frustrating items in your title company employees’ workflows. The stuff they would rather juggle chainsaws instead.

While conducting a survey and talking to hundreds of title companies, using the TitleCapture branded platform, we were very surprised to learn that almost 50%… yes, almost half… of title companies didn’t care if their real estate agents or lenders actually used the estimate tools available in the platform. Wow!

Why is that? Because their staff, the title company employees, simply love how easy and fast it is to generate and send out branded Title Quotes (and Seller Net Sheets, if their clients ask them for one).

Compared to the wacky excel files, the settlement software (where you have to open a file first, in order to get a quote), our platform seems a breeze to them and when they get used to using our tool, they just can’t let go. I’ll tell you a funny story, in another post, about a “mutiny” inside one of the large title companies, when they let their staff know they were thinking of canceling TitleCapture.

Those title company employees are happy. And guess what, when they’re happy, they tend to do a better job overall.

Start listening to what their pain points are and be open to provide solutions. Show them you’re loyal to them and you respect them, and they will, in turn reciprocate with their loyalty toward the company and its’ clients.

If you want to see how our platform will make your staff’s lives so much easier, schedule a 30-minute online demo with our friendly staff. It’s going to blow you away, guaranteed.

The post How to Motivate Your Title Company Employees to Provide the Best Customer Experience first appeared on titlecapture.com.

According to SHRM, the turnover rate in the services sector is around 30%. That is huge. It means that one on three title reps may leave and, because of the very personal one-to-one relationship between your reps and your agents, it means you risk losing 30% of your client base in one go, at any given time. That may be a devastating blow to your title company’s bottom line.

The good news is this is all preventable. The bad news is most advice on how to prevent turnover is either very basic and generic, or it’s wrong and missing the point.

When you do an online search for preventing employee turnover you will get tips such as:
– Hire the right people
– Fire the ones who don’t fit
– Keeping compensation current and reward employees financially
– Keep employees happy
– Have clean performance reviews
– Cultivate respect at the workplace
and so on.

And while this is definitely good advice, people will leave your company even if you’ve taken all of the above measures.

So why is it that they leave?

Well, it’s tricky and requires you to put on a different kind of hat. It’s pretty much the same reason why people stay affiliated with political parties, religious groups and large brands.

It’s called identity and it’s pretty much what we as humans are always in search for.

As long as our financial needs are met and we have food on the table and a roof above our heads, we, as humans, switch to fulfilling our more “spiritual” needs. One of the most important spiritual need is the need to discover or confirm our identity. In other words, we need to discover and then constantly re-confirm who we are.

It’s the reason why people who want to feel innovative and different stay with Apple. Do you really think that the reason why “Apple people” keep buying the latest iteration of the iPhone is the better camera or the OLED screen? I don’t think so. While these are rational reasons we use to justify the decision to ourselves and our friends, the real reason we buy the latest phone is that we need to re-confirm our identity.

We need to acquire these “tokens” every year so we can subconsciously tell ourselves that we are still the “creative”, “innovative”, “rebellious” person we were when we first saw Steve Jobs on stage wearing his hallmark turtleneck presenting the iPod. We fell in love with that identity and decided that’s who we wanted to be.

90% of our decisions are emotional, not rational, and that includes the decision regarding our workplace, our spouse, the home we live in, the car we drive and so on.

Your employees will wake up in the morning and ask themselves “Why am I even going to work today? Why am I working for this company?”.

There can only be one answer to this: “Because this company best represents who I am and what I believe in.” Any other answer and you’re in trouble.

So, what do you need to do in order for that answer to naturally pop up? You need to develop a brand, a clear identity and a belief system that they can identify with. If you deliver that to your employees and clients, they will want to be part of that collective culture indefinitely.

Building a brand is as much a science as it is an art and there are professionals who can help you with this but let me just give you an idea of what it entails.

The first step is you need to decide what your title company stands for. You need to figure out what is that one idea or set of beliefs that best characterizes you and your title company. Are you all about being smart and innovative? Are you all about celebrating top-producers and grandiose visions? Are you all about providing as much care and personal assistance?

You need to figure this out and most of the times this is deeply rooted in the actual owners’ or founders’ values. Chances you already have a vaguely defined identity or culture around that and all you have to do is bring it forward.

Can you close your eyes and picture your title company as if it was an individual? Could you imagine it had a name? What would he or she wear? What would he or she talk about? What attitude would he or she have towards the outside world?

This exercise is important because once you figured out what your core belief system or identity is all about, you need to get to work and make sure all your “touch points” are in line with that identity.

What do I mean by that?

Well, all the interactions both your employees and your clients have with your title company are touch points and they have to constantly reinforce that idea your company stands behind. It’s through repetition that they will start to become part of this collective culture and brand.

To best illustrate this, let’s assume your title company is all about celebrating top-producers. What you need to do is make sure your visuals (including your logo, collaterals, website, etc) sport strong, reliable, contrasting colors paired with solid, geometric shapes.

You will need to enforce competition, so an open space is not a great idea. You may also need to come up with grand-sounding job titles. Posters on the walls featuring motivational quotes from sports personalities are a must.

Celebrate your title reps and their agents on your social media accounts by posting weekly success stories. Host monthly events where you invite speakers that can talk about growth, success and achievement. Take them to large events revolving around the same topics.

Cultivating a sense of “us versus them”, where you pick a competing title company will drive this culture even further. Signing up for the latest and greatest technology that they don’t have is also something you may want to consider.

There are so many other “touch points” that can reflect your core belief, but I think you get the point for now.

The key thing however is consistency. You need to build and cultivate your brand day in and day out. Year after year, always sticking to the same set of beliefs and not shifting. The worst thing you can do is talk about one thing today and then switch 180 degrees the next day. This is a surefire way of not only confusing your employees but also lose their confidence.

And without trust, there’s no love.

But where’s there’s love, there’s loyalty.

The post What if your best title reps leave? Will they take your agents with them? first appeared on titlecapture.com.