CleanOffer’s Agent-Client Relationship Statement Survey Results

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

As Director of Sales at CleanOffer, I am always soliciting feedback from our users. A common concern from agents is the “Agent-Client Relationship” statement that a client must accept in order to register.  Unlike lead-generating public websites, CleanOffer was designed for the serious buyer, and from what we’ve seen virtually all serious home buyers want to work with an agent. We believe that the statement is important, but we still wanted to address the valid concerns of some of our members, so we conducted a survey last November to determine if we needed to make any changes.

With 46% of the agents surveyed responding, 52% said we should keep it as is, 30% said we should make it optional (i.e. let the agent choose whether to require it),  and only 18% said we should eliminate it completely.

This issue is a hot topic that produces an emotional response. From the comments we received, the majority who want to keep it strongly feel a commitment from clients is reasonable: after all they are paying to provide the service to their clients for free and real estate is what they do for a living. Requiring clients to at least say they are intending to work with them doesn’t seem too much to ask. The biggest reason why some agents want it optional (or want it removed) is because they worry about the reaction of prospective clients to the statement.

From the clients’ side, we often get questions like “what is it for?” and “does this bind me legally?”. The statement benefits clients too, in that it is one of the arguments we use to persuade the MLS’s to allow clients who use CleanOffer to search all the listings on the MLS - by using the agent-client relationship statement to show the MLS that clients on CleanOffer are definitely working with an MLS member agent.  While the statement is not legally binding, in agreeing to it most clients are being honest that they are working with that agent, and that in turn means that the agents can devote time and money to helping these clients with added confidence that a transaction will likely result. That’s good for the clients too.

We would like some feedback from agents that use it effectively to help your fellow agents:

      1.  How do you present it?

      2.  Do you have to explain it, or are clients generally willing to accept the agreement in exchange for agent level access to the MLS?

      3.  Any advice to agents having trouble getting clients to agree?

We’d also love to get feedback from any clients reading this post about their perception of the statement when they signed up.

We do believe the Agent-Client relationship statement has value and our survey seems to show that a majority of the agents agree.

What if your computer was stolen?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Last week mine was.

I had just finished a meeting with my team at our offices on the 16th floor in downtown San Francisco. Upon entering my personal office directly across the hall, I immediately noticed my notebook computer was not in its docking station.  Plus, where was my computer bag (with my car keys or other stuff in it)?  Amazing…11am in the morning in a high-rise with people directly across the hall and somebody had the chutzpah to walk into an office and steal a computer!

The replacement cost of my stuff was one thing but what about all my years of stored work?  My emails?  My documents? My pictures?  (No CleanOffer customer information was stored on there.  We keep that data at a high security, backed-up, co-location server facility). 

Having your personal computer stolen is certainly a violation of personal space and a major hassle. But it could have been much worse.  Luckily, my great engineers at CleanOffer taught me some excellent data habits over the years. (Unfortunately, the one about locking my office door did not sink in!).  After buying a new computer, thanks to these habits I was restored and back in business in relatively short order. 

Important Computer Data Habits:

• Password protect your computer.
• Back-up all your important documents, favorites and pictures on a regular basis.  This can be easily done with a portable USB drive ($100) or an online back-up service.  Use an automated system so you don’t have to remember.
• Use IMAP email.  By doing so, all your current and past emails including folders, addresses and attachments are available instantly from any computer. 
• Keep your software installation disks in one spot.
• Have some sort of PDA for your contacts and appointments.  This way you still have this information even if your computer is gone.  You can restore it all back to your new computer from the PDA.

So what about the bad guy doing something evil with all my information?  Of course I changed all my financially related online passwords right away.  Plus, since my computer itself was password protected, it is not likely that the bad guy could access my files anyway.  My engineers told me that in the vast majority of cases the thief simply erases your hard-drive and sells your computer on Craigslist.

Ah ha…so maybe I could find my computer on Craigslist and catch the guy!  I searched Craigslist just to see and the the first advertisement for a Thinkpad T60 read:

“IBM Thinkpad T60 for sale.  This is a steal!”    Hummmmm.

Click-throughs are not “Leads”

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I was going to write a summary about the ineffectiveness of all the so called online “lead” generators but I think Dan Green of TheMortgageReports.com says it as well as anybody in his post, In The Business Of Personal Relationships .

After all, Real Estate is a Relationship Game.  Besides, does anybody really want to be somebody’s Lead?

Minor Update Tonight

Friday, February 01, 2008

We will be releasing a small update tonight to correct a problem with open house information for REIL listings. As part of the update, we are also bundling in two minor changes: Google Analytics integration and CleanOffer Blog links inside the application. Please see the release notes for detailed information about the update. The scope of this update is limited, but you may be pleased to know that we are working on a larger release scheduled for the beginning of April. As we get closer to the release date, we will post articles here to preview the upcoming features.

In keeping with the spirit of CleanOffer's New Year's resolution, over the next few months the engineering team will be blogging on a variety of topics to keep the CleanOffer community informed about the product. Subscribe to our feed or check our blog regularly to find:

• CleanOffer product announcements.
• Previews of upcoming features.
• Demonstrations of lesser known CleanOffer features.

Release Notes

REIL Open House Information

There was an error in the way we were downloading open house information for REIL. This caused missing and/or incorrect open house information for REIL listings. We've corrected the problem and REIL users should now receive correct open house information. This issue is limited to REIL, users in other MLSes are not affected by this problem.

Google Analytics

In order to better track the usage of the CleanOffer application, we've integrated the Google Analytics service. This will allow us to better understand how our users navigate through the application so that we can improve the user experience.

Blog Links

We've added links to the CleanOffer blog to the bottom of every page of the application.