If you are receiving complaints in your real estate business, and everyone does sooner or later, here are a few suggestions that can help you handle them with confidence and class:

• Listen and learn -- Resist the urge to react too quickly to what you think you're hearing. If you drill down into the nature of a complaint you may just find that there's a lot behind it. Most times, people don't call on one problem. They call about an accumulation of issues or a trend in the way they've been treated. Listening does two things: it allows the customer to feel they are being heard and helps you learn from the mistake.

• Don't make hasty promises -- You have to digest the background and then come back with solution after you have the pieces of the puzzle. If you do the research you may find out that what the customer perceives is not the whole story or that the complaint only stems from a lack of communication. Research before acting allows you to determine if you have a really big problem that could require corrective and preventative actions. It could also tell you whether it's the client who has the problem or your system.

• Find out what complaints have to teach you -- Learn something from every complaint. A complaint tells you something's not working. That something may be communication or a core issue that the complaint represents.

• Avoid being defensive -- Defensiveness creates a barrier to listening and finding a solution. If you spend your time defending yourself, you aren't listening. You need to build an environment among your team members that eliminates defensiveness and encourages you to focus on aligning yourself with the client.

  That means recognizing that regardless of the validity of the problem, they perceive it as a problem. We all live in our own perceptions. You have to try to walk in your clients' shoes to experience what they do. Defensiveness allows you to dismiss the complaint as frivolous and ignore what caused it. In fact, most people don't complain frivolously.

• Be prepared to retrain the client -- In many cases, complaints come because the client didn't receive clear expectations. When that's the case, you'll need to restructure a client's expectations on things like closing times, scheduling times and delivery times. We all know that it's better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way around.

• Don't ignore the single complaint -- If there's one complaint there are probably many who aren't bothering to contact you. It's the people who aren't calling that you should worry about. If one client thought it important enough to call you on it, how many others are thinking it? And, why aren't they calling? Maybe it's because they've already gone down the street to get their services from someone else.

They provide instant web access and delivery through ILS eServices to nationwide loan support products including QuickClose LPI, ACA ValueGuard, appraisals, collateral assessments, credit reports, title searches, flood determinations, loan processing, convenience closings, escrow/funding and post closing review. Corporate offices are in Rocky Hill, Connecticut with additional locations in Fairfield Connecticut, Florida, California, New York, Maine and Massachusetts. For more information about the role of complaints in retaining clients, contact Ms. Rinaldo at jrinaldo@ils.com or phone or (800) 842-8423 ext. 1365.

Published: August 30, 2005

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