Customer Satisfaction – It’s the Secret Sauce!

Customer Satisfaction. It’s a buzzword that most deem to be really important. But is it taken seriously? Is customer satisfaction really important to a company or does it just sound good to claim that it is? Because the proof is in the follow up and service follow through with the customer.

If you offer a service do you see the process through?

At PorchLight, we arrange a variety of rental tours to help our clients find a home as they are being relocated. Nearly 85 percent of the time the transferee finds a rental, whether it’s an apartment, condo or single-family home. It could be privately owned or property managed. It could be in one of the largest metropolitan cities in the United States or it could be in a tiny rural town with a population of 2,000. There could be pets or not. They could have sparkling credit or a poor history that creates some challenges. It could be a single person or a family with several school-aged children that need to start in a new school. They could be moving to United States where they have never even visited before, much less lived.

In most cases destination service providers offer one day of service and once the day is over – so is the service. But what happens to those people who don’t find a home through their rental tour experience and thereafter the support is gone? They are left on their own to manage the process of finding a rental. You may think that this should be a relatively easy thing to do, right? Given online resources and technology today, that resources are available to make it easy. But that’s not always the case.

With vacancy rates at an all-time low, rents at an all-time high and climbing, along with the specific requirements of each individual transferee, they need help more now than ever to manage the whole process. Having a trusted person that works directly with the transferee offers substantially more guidance than a computer keyboard and mouse. We find time and time again that what someone thought they wanted prior to visiting a market can change dramatically once they are there and see what’s available and at what rental rates. Commute times, neighborhoods and dwellings can appear completely different online than in real life.

The answer is continued support and to have the people and processes in place to make sure that the customer’s end goal is achieved as quickly and efficiently as possible. Relocation is a big deal and comes with complex decisions that are going to impact many people’s day-to-day lives. If the wrong choice is made, it could result in a very despondent, stressed employee, which can in turn affect overall job satisfaction and productivity; if their home life is not a happy one.

Customer Satisfaction and continued support – it’s the secret sauce to close the loop and make sure the service is effectively delivered even after the clock says times up!