When I first became a leasing agent, many years ago, I found myself consistently struggling to get any kind of real traction on the phone. I had call after call where I would look down on my guest card and see notes like this:

Harold-one bedroom, cocker spaniel

I discovered that while being friendly on the phone was easy, consistently obtaining the information I needed from a customer was not. I had many guest cards that were accidentally “lost” because I was so embarrassed to show them to my managers. As I moved on to other management, training and corporate roles I realized that I wasn’t the only one who kept making the same mistake that derailed many calls before they ever got going.

So what is the mistake?

Directly answering a customer’s question at the beginning of the call!

Let me explain further-I’m assuming that your leasing agents end their initial greeting with something like, “…How can I help you, today?” Now after hearing this question many customers respond with simple and short phrases like:

“How much are your two bedrooms?”

“What are your specials?”

“Do you have any three bedroom apartments?”

This is the key moment: When a customer asks a direct question like the one above, many leasing associates then choose to answer the question right away, which often leads to calls like this:

Customer: How much are your two bedrooms?

Associate: Our two bedroom apartments range from $850-$1,250.

Customer: Okay, thanks!

OR:

Customer: What are your specials?

Associate: Right now we have a discount of $250 if you rent your apartment on your first visit.

Customer: Okay, thanks.

Did you catch that? As soon as the customer asked a question, the associate provided an answer. Obviously it’s natural for associates to want to answer questions, which is what makes this technique so easy to miss.

Yet, when associates answer questions at the very beginning of the call, it decreases the chances that they will take control of the conversation, since the person that asks the questions has control. Once the call snowballs out of control it can be hard to get that control back.

In looking back at my career, this is what made it such a struggle for me. I wanted to gain control. I wanted to ask the questions I needed to. But I found myself backed into a corner because I didn’t position myself properly in the first place.

The Secret

After the customer responds to, “How may I help you?” the associate’s response should always be something like this:

Customer: What are your specials?

Associate: I’d be happy to help you with that!

Who am I speaking with?

Customer: Abby

Associate: And Abby, just in case we get cut off,

what is the best number for me to reach you?

After obtaining the customer’s name and phone number, your associate can then proceed to respond to the specific request by asking another question:

“So that I can give you the most accurate information about our specials, is it okay if I ask you a few questions….?”

Notice, we’re not ignoring the customer’s initial request about “specials," we’re just waiting until a little later in the call to address it. We’ve also tied in the customer’s desire to know about the specials with our need to get some information from them. In most cases the customer will answer “yes” and the associate is now free to ask away.

This technique was part of a phone training program I developed for a company in Colorado~and we saw a 10% increase in “real-world” phone performance after the first year and a 20% after the second year!

For best results you’ll want to combine this technique with a comprehensive phone training and presentation program that gives associates a full range of proven strategies to succeed on the phone. Then make sure that your associates practice this technique until it becomes second nature.

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