Today’s sales gurus are pitching a softer side to selling, making the experience delightful for all involved.

Gone are the days of high-pressure sales, where closings were king regardless of consequence. Selling for the sake of closing means selling at all costs—including at the expense of what’s best for property buyers. Today’s sales gurus are pitching a softer, more delightful side to selling that takes into account what’s best for the buyers. It isn’t so much focused on the closing at hand, but rather the long-term relationship that might result from the sales experience.

That’s especially true in real estate, where clients make major purchases and have to live with what they buy, often for the long-term.

Creating delightful customer service

Matt Ehrlichman wrote about the principles of customer delight on Inc.com. Delighting clients means building authentic relationships beyond the moments around the actual sale. In “The 8 Principles of Customer Delight,” Ehrlichman illustrated how to achieve customer delight with core principles that should be part of one’s sales culture, regardless of what a person is selling.

Among those principles:

Be on time. Be timely with responses to questions, feedback, fulfilling promises, and more. Today’s society is driven by immediate gratification. Being on time means you are paying attention, are focused on the buyer, and care about the interaction.

Listen. Customer feedback (whether it’s positive or negative) is an opportunity to better understand the customer experience, Ehrlichman, CEO of Porch.com, wrote. According to Ehrlichman, he still reads all customer feedback and often shares it with his team. Feedback buttons on business websites are a must, he wrote.

Young couple listening to real estate agent

Sell customers what they need, which is not always what they want. Ehrlichman cited Henry Ford’s quote, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Sometimes, people don’t realize the potential of what’s out there in properties, until the real estate agent makes it a reality.

Delight customers with little things, even when they don’t expect it. Somehow, make it evident that you care more about delighting that customer than making the sale.

Be there for your customers. Regardless of a client’s request, question, issue, be a starting point and help the client find solutions. Real estate transactions have a lot of moving parts and professionals. The real estate agent should be the primary contact person.

Delight customers with little things, even when they don’t expect it. Somehow, make it evident that you care more about delighting that customer than making the sale.

Just as important, know when to give clients space. Remember, this is not high-pressure sales. Stepping back can allow buyers the space they need to make the right decision about purchasing a home.

Communicate your plan for helping clients when they need help. If there’s an issue, have a plan in place for addressing it and tell customers what that plan is. People, nowadays, appreciate the transparency.

Helping others: A delightful way to sell

Another way to look at the sales process, according to Dan Tyre, who wrote a blog on the topic on Hubspot.com, is to “always be helping.” The high-pressure “always be closing” approach doesn’t work with most of today’s buyers, according to Tyre. While a real estate agent might make a sale using the high-pressure closing at all costs approach, it isn’t conducive to getting repeat business, customer referrals, good reviews, reputation management—all the things that help to brand a salesperson in today’s transparent world.

Female REALTOR handing keys to new home owner.

Instead, agents and others should focus on always helping. That means guiding clients through the process and helping them to make the best choices while making sure they have the best possible experience along the way.

“Always be helping” strategies include genuinely determining if what you have to offer will solve your client’s need or problem. Every buyer has his or her own needs or problems to solve. Agents who can meet those needs with the right properties stand to close deals and end up with happy, satisfied, long-term clients.

…agents and others should focus on always helping. That means guiding clients through the process and helping them to make the best choices while making sure they have the best possible experience along the way.

Consider and understand a client’s stage in the decision-making process. Marketing to potential buyers who are just beginning to realize they want to buy a property might be too early. The always be helping approach works best when clients are fully aware that they want or need to buy or sell a property.

Finally, Tyre wrote that it’s important to make the process as easy and enjoyable as possible for each customer. That means being willing to give up control of the buying process, by striking a balance between how the clients want the process to go and tapping your expertise and knowledge to guide them in the best direction.

Do you have any tips for creating a delightful sales experience? Let us know in the comments below!