‘The Dutch real estate agents know very little about the client they have in front of them,’ says Willem Verbeke, professor of Sales and Account Management at Erasmus School of Economics, in an interview with the magazine VBO Makelaar. According to him, ‘real estate agents are unaware or barely aware of what is going on before people get into action to buy a house, and that this is often going on for a long time.’
‘Real estate agents have much more to offer in these early stages, which are mainly online. And real estate agents should follow this online search with Customer Journey Mapping,’ says Verbeke. Verbeke sees a role for the branch organization, since it would be too difficult for all individual real estate agents to achieve expertise in Customer Journey Mapping. According to him real estate agents should widen their scope. ‘Being a real estate agent does not only mean buying and selling houses. In fact, it is achieving the social goals of the client.’
The interview with VBO Makelaar can be found on pages 24-25 (in Dutch), February 2018.