What Brokers Can Learn From KOA

KOA means Kampgrounds of America. I did not know that. They are the largest franchisor of campgrounds in the world. For years, many of their campgrounds advertised themselves as the 'Best KOA in America.' Sound familiar?

Real estate brokers and agents constantly promote themselves as the #1 this or that. But what is really important to the consumer?

Bill Hendricks, CEO of KOA spoke in San Luis Obispo, RE Technology's hometown, this week. He is an executive in residence at Cal Poly, our local university. He took the bold move of asking consumers to rate their campgrounds. He delivered the results of their surveys at their annual convention. He shared that many of the consumer suggestions were easily fixable – repair this, replace that, add something. Nothing startling.

Mr. Hendricks published the list of the top rated sites. He reports that "it was the best thing I have ever done." People that thought they were doing a great job realized that they had work to do. "...owners forget the fundamentals of providing great service."

The no. 1 thing that made a difference in customer satisfaction was the people. Owners who made a point to engage with their customers were rewarded with the highest satisfaction scores and the highest likelihood to revisit the location.

To this day, I cannot accept why every broker in America is not using a customer satisfaction system like QSC or RealSatisfied in their business. I personally think that publishing the satisfaction and agent ratings is the right thing to do. But, it's an invaluable process even if you just use the results to coach your agents and staff.