Fillmore held it’s annual administrative assistants workshop yesterday and the news was encouraging for most AA’s.

In a bold move to push forward the companies SATISFACTION theme for 2010, Fillmore is laying the groundwork for increased involvement of the current AA team.  Administrative assistants, for the first time, will have an opportunity to move up in the company.  New positions will be created as the company grows and achieves customer satisfaction goals.

“I can imagine a future where our branch office sales managers will select office managers instead of administrative assistants.”  The new positions of “Office Manager” and “Office Assistant Manager” will be responsible for keeping the day to day operations well oiled and working at full speed.  The growth opportunity lies in the assistant’s ability to take a more active role in ensuring productivity of agents through customer satisfaction.  Although these positions are not in existence at Fillmore, we are working together to establish the potential AA career growth plan.

Currently we outsource our customer satisfaction calls but with the new plan the AA’s will be making those calls on a regular basis.  There will be special training that will provide the current team with the skills necessary to exceed the consumers expectations with regards to Fillmore’s  satisfaction initiative.

Here are some of the things that the AA’s will do differently:

Keep track of the Time Till Agent: Time Till Agent is the amount of time it takes for the consumer to speak to an actual agent.  The office TTA  goal is always under fifteen minutes and preferably immediately via a warm transfer to an available agent.
36 HR Follow Up: The AA places a follow up call and/or emails a mini-survey to each and every potential customer/inquiry within 36 hours and thereby measures satisfaction and performance of agents.  The response time is recorded on agents customer satisfaction rating and if there are any issues or areas where the AA can help, they do so at this time.  All notes and communications are added to Fillmore’s prospect management system so all can see the progress being made.
Weekly Whispers: The AA communicates with a list of prospects that may have seen properties with the office recently, but have dropped out of sight.  The AA will place a whisper call, leaving a message that there are a few homes that have come to market in the area that they might be interested in.  The agent’s name is mentioned and a script provides opportunities to engage or re-engage the consumer into action.
EMAIL-A-THON: When the AA’s communicate with buyers and sellers, they are going to make sure that they are constantly updating their information.  The sign of a more successful AA would be one that has achieved more email addresses for buyers and sellers.  These email addresses will be used to better communicate with the consumer in ways that they want to be communicated.  For buyers, we would encourage the buyer to sign up for our Fillmore Alert program .  We would use the sellers email address to make sure that they are taking advantage of the Seller Dashboard program that tracks all activity on the property.
Seller Dashboard Update: Fillmore provides an excellent opportunity to communicate with the sellers 24/7 via sellerdashboard.com.  The AA’s will take a more active role in recording all activities on the seller dashboard, and will monitor and encourage agents to do the same.  This effort requires a comprehensive plan to make sure that agents are recording properties shown, and all offers, open houses and activities.

AA’s will work as an advocate for the office in moving the team further along the path of providing excellence…always.
Customer Satisfaction: AA’s were trained on customer service skills, and there will continue to be workshops that will expand the skills and talent of the AA pool at Fillmore.
Don’t be surprised when a Fillmore AA answers the call and says, “YES, I can help you with that!”  The word “no” is NO LONGER allowed to be used!
AA’s will identify what the caller is looking to accomplish, restate what they think the purpose is to confirm to the caller, and then tell the caller the plan or provide the information on the spot.
Each call will be ended with, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

The Administrative Assistants have always been recognized as the first impression that the consumer gets of the company.  Fillmore’s SATISFACTION 2010 Plan is now being deployed to the front line team.

We’re proud of our AA’s at Fillmore, and we are looking forward to watching them take a more active role in providing the best customer service in the real estate industry.
It’s our mission – It’s our plan!

Together, we’re changing the way people think about real estate!
Fillmore Satisfaction:  Providing Excellent Customer Satisfaction…Always!