What Happens When You Rush the Process?
Sometimes in our need for speed, we lose sight of some of the basics. While it’s true that an OSC’s role has always been about appointment setting and getting people in front of the site agents there are several factors that must be addressed.
Appointments Need to be Strong – the whole point of filtering all the digital leads to the OSC is to make sure to find out what people really want. There’s a fine art to the matching process, and if we rush to the end zone (the appointment) we may end up fumbling the ball. Yeah, yeah, a little football analogy, and I am by no means fluent in sports. But I am fluent in OSC, and a strong appointment is what we are going for, not just someone saying yes, but being a match with what we actually sell. This cuts down on miss communication and disappointment.
Sometimes You Can Build Instant Relationships – but sometimes you can’t. Not all buyers are the same and it’s important to treat each person as an individual and get to know what they need, want and desire as you build rapport and trust. You can’t just rush rush rush an appointment because you have someone on the phone. Yes you always ask for that appointment or try to get them to the natural place of, “From everything you are telling me, the next best step is for you to come out for a VIP appointment and meet with our community specialist.” OSC’s are deterring appointments but they aren’t setting them too fast either.
Make Sure To Take Time and Build Rapport – When you take the time as an OSC to get to know each person and not lump them all into a speed race to the finish line, the appointment, it’s goes a long way for your builder’s reputation and the customer experience.
Don’t Try to Make OSC Appointments into Walk-in Traffic – One of the reasons we have this OSC stop along the way is to make an appointment stronger than walk-in traffic. To give a buyer more confidence. To better understand them before they walk in the door. While yes, walk-in traffic isn’t what it used to be, we are not trying to send a volume of walk-ins to the agents just to keep them busy. An OSC appointment should be strong. We are not trying to just get bodies through the door. We need to ditch the quantity over quality mentality we’ve seemed to cultivate in our industry.
Rushing the process doesn’t get us more sales, it ultimately creates busy work for site agents, and at times can make buyer angry. We need to slow down and provide wonderful information, built trust, and find out what buyers really need.