Attention All Hands: Please Report To Your Service Stations!

Since the late 1990s the American real estate industry has been engaged in a non-stop effort to build and maintain competitiveness within the Internet marketplace. The first priority focused on the control and distribution of information; a struggle that, last year, centered on MLS listing information. The second priority targeted control, access, and influence over the real estate consumer.

Now the Internet challenge is expanding to a new frontier. Transporting our industry to this destination may seem like work for superheroes or space travelers. Yet nothing less than survival may be at stake. So set your coordinates for the little explored quadrant of super service provision.

Ours is not the only business sector facing the challenge of delivering better service in the Internet environment. While the real estate industry has been fighting for Internet supremacy, another reality is spreading across America. An increasing number of industries are discovering that great service has become critical to their overall success and profit.  

Some of the most significant corporations in the American economy are working to meet the standards set by Internet-based service models. These new service standards are fueled by increasingly demanding consumers. In March of this year several major corporations including Microsoft, Oracle and IBM joined forces. Their ambition created a non-profit Silicon Valley entity known as the Service Research & Innovation (SRI) Initiative. Sustaining this organization signals a new trend in American business. Major corporations are shifting their attention from products to services. Much of this attention is focused on the Internet.

“We need a professional organization to help promote service science,” said James C. Spohrer, director of service research at the I.B.M. Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. “It is one of the seed crystals around which the new discipline will form.”

I.B.M. and Oracle are founding corporate members of the Service Research and Innovation Initiative. Other company members of the organization’s advisory board include Accenture, Cisco, Computer Sciences, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Xerox.

Researchers from several universities including some from the University of California, Los Angeles; the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; and Arizona State University. The European Commission and a German research organization, the Fraunhofer Institute, are also members of the advisory committee.

The new initiative, backed by two professional societies: the Technology Professional Services Association, and the Service and Support Professionals Association; is led by Executive Director Thomas W. Pridham, Senior Vice President for advanced programs at SSPA.

The idea of innovation in the service sector flies in the face of innovation, as most perceive it. The unveiling of Apple’s new iPhone in June fit the classic concept to a T. Here was an exciting new product that incorporates dozens of amazing features into a sexy package design. Complete with glitzy marketing, the whole package was so successful that it sold over 700,000 units in the first 24 hours and redefined the cell phone space. It was classic innovation at its best.

Thanks to automation, local customer service competition is coming from as far away as Asia. Experts suggest that the greatest battle of the war may be fought on the service front. The time has come for the real estate industry to take a careful look at its service practices. Each station needs to determine whether they can stand up to the demands and expectations of today’s real estate consumer. Properly managed, your station may be one of the fronts where the real estate industry finally wins the war, establishing its long-term dominance in the real estate space.

At first blush many in the industry will breath an initial sigh of relief. Most, if not all, agents and brokers believe themselves to be the ultimate service providers. Indeed some are. However, a more realistic appraisal would note that most real estate service packages are created and delivered by real estate service providers, with little or no consumer input, participation, rating or response.  

More to the point, some experts who have access to credible surveying processes suggest that the consumer may not be that happy with the industry’s service package, especially the ones delivered in up markets.

The upcoming struggle for service superiority will have to incorporate features never even considered by traditional real estate practitioners. Property and agent rating, consumer comparisons and new information about target properties are but a few of the new service dimensions.

Most if not all of the industry’s Internet-based competitors are already working to develop service programs that wow the consumers. Zillow, Google, eBay and Yahoo have already made progress in the service arena. This early focus has provided them with strategic and tactical leads in this important area.

So what needs to happen to ensure a real estate industry victory in the service arena? The first step must occur at the top of the management and command structure. Executives must recognize that super service:

1. Will not be a product of experience, time in the saddle or market domination
2. Will not be accomplished on an agent by agent basis
3. Will involve company-wide programs, with management commitment, that can be measured, benchmarked and monitored
4. Must include a valid and viable consumer input in its design, execution and rating

In short, super service must be a product of your brokerage’s creative processes division. Anything else would be just an exercise.

Are you gonna fly now? The current market offers the perfect opportunity to invest your time and energy. Search this new frontier. Develop creative service procedures and policies for your brokerage. Under your watchful eye, what will super service look like in your firm in 2009?