Service Forensics: Diagnosis, Treatment, Survival

In medicine, post-mortem examinations often yield discoveries that help save future lives. In business, examination of customer feedback offers insights that can help keep customer relationships alive, too.

As market conditions return to normal, strong business fundamentals remain the key for sustaining business success. If you believe that consumer-centric service is one of those key business fundamentals, then employing science and the careful examination of customer service performance is essential.

Traditional analytical processes associated with real estate brokerage and home services are myopically focused on sales, productivity, expense management and profitability. It's always been about sales and productivity. They are important. But in a consumer-centric world, it's the total service process not just the sale that counts. Making the sale does not ensure a satisfactory service experience and does not ensure future sales or referrals. And the cost of acquiring new customers along with the costs and risks related to poor service demand a new orientation of high productivity and high customer satisfaction.

The recent trend in agent ratings has lead to dozens, if not hundreds, of sites and services offering "consumer feedback." The problem is, nearly every available system in real estate attempts to shortcut the effort and expense serious research requires. Open sites, "invite only" and marketing companies can offer the perception of credible, reliable, and complete information but, in reality, feedback is gathered based on convenience, not research.