There is a saying in sales, “Don’t sell past the close.” Meaning once your customers have committed to buying from you, sign them up and move on. Whatever it is you’re selling, what you’re really selling is you! Your expertise, your knowledge, your ability to take care of your customer, and to deliver value. Since recently taking over at TRIBUS, I’ve gotten to know a lot about our customers, and what they love about TRIBUS. There are many broker platform vendors out there, so why do our customers choose us[1]? In my opinion, I am very happy to say it’s because of what we deliver past the close.
As in any industry, deviating from proposal pricing or scope can be stressful, expensive, create distrust and sour a relationship before it’s had a chance to develop. The products we build for our customers are complex, and needs change as customers go through their design phase with us. We uncover issues customers didn’t know existed. Pros and cons of certain designs or functionality are explored during this phase, and often what a customer knew they had to have coming in to the project may not be so important once it’s fully analyzed. Or, conversely, what was considered minor can become a major design element and must-have functionality. It happens. Change is constant. We expect it, even if customers don’t. Knowing this, we do tell our customers in advance we do not finalize our pricing until the design phase is complete. We have set your expectations properly. When changes arise, customers are aware of any deviation from the original plan, know why it’s important, what it costs and agrees to it before we build it.
By providing full transparency, there are no surprises at the end of the day, and more importantly, no bitter feelings.
That transparency continues through the design and development phase. Our customers can see who’s working on what for their project, how much time has been spent on their project, what state it’s in, and see posted design mockups whenever they want. No need to wait for a weekly (or less frequent) status call from a project manager who then surprises you with cost overruns or project delays.
At and before launch, our team trains the customer’s staff and agents, and stands ready to support them via email, chat and text over extended hours. This piece is often overlooked, but at TRIBUS it’s a critical part of our success, because it helps ensure agent adoption of this technology.
Agents using broker technology means productive and happy agents, which helps our brokerage customer attract and retain agents.
I will be happy to demo our products for you, show you the features and designs we offer, but so much of our success, and our customers’ happiness, results from things I cannot easily show you. So, while our customers end up with great websites and broker technology, what they’re really buying is a great team here to support them before the sale, and past the close.
[1] To help select the right vendor for you, use our free Real Estate Broker Technology Vendor Checklist.