The Title Industries Starbucks Moment:
Today, as I think about all of the changes that the title industry has experienced over the past few months with COVID and the move towards a more digital (or remote) closing experience, it’s been fun to watch title companies adjust like I did so many years ago. In many ways, the title industry has had its own Starbucks Moment.
I’ve seen title companies put themselves in the customers’ shoes to create solutions for a COVID-era closing experience that is both efficient and safe. This has resulted in drive-through closings, plexiglass closing stations in closing rooms, text messaging so customers can say “I am here” once arriving, plus embracing Remote Online Notary and other e-signing platforms or new software to help communicate during the closing process.
This focus on the customer and the customer experience also takes me back to my days at Coed Monkey, where I described this customer-first mentality as “Six Star Customer Care.”
Why six stars you might ask?
Well, Google only allows customers to rate based on five stars and I wanted to do one better than even Google allowed.
And care, since care is proactive, whereas service is reactive.
So, what does six star care really look like?
Six star care results in customers going beyond simply leaving a five star review, but also leaving a comment. The comment however had to talk about more than just the product we sold. It had to include a description about their experience with us, while mentioning the team members’ name that helped them.
Offering six star care became the North Star for everyone at Coed Monkey and they came up with creative ways to make our customers experience with us even better. This resulted in making product videos, shooting pictures of our product on our own models, creating an instant online quote feature on our website, allowing different payment methods for larger purchases and even ending orders with handwritten thank you notes (which might include Starbucks gift cards).
Within a few months of debuting six star care, Coed Monkey began to receive six star Google reviews in numbers that were shocking.
So, what does this mean for you and your title company?
How can you move from reactive customer service, to proactive six star customer care?
You’ve already done so much over the past few months to create a safe and efficient closing experience for your customers and staff, but I believe you can take it further.
Maybe you need to have your own personal Starbucks Moment to detach from your business and dream about what your customers deserve; because as COVID continues to spread through this country, businesses that change and evolve with it by focusing on the customer and offering six star customer care will be the ones that not only survive, but thrive.
Bill Svoboda
Currently, Bill is the co-founder of CloseSimple, a software that helps Title companies communicate to Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Professionals and Consumers during the home closing process. Bill is a passionate speaker on the topics of both entrepreneurism, customer-engagement, customer experience, growth strategies and why everyone should make at least one pair of shoes from Zappos.com (you’ll need to hear him talk to learn why).
