What is an Online New Home Sales Consultant?

Proactively adopting new sales strategies and transforming your organization to meet the new needs of customers is a crucial part of reaching your revenue goals. Traditional sales tactics — or onsite sales agents on their own — cannot always reach the milestones and goals that determine whether a new development is a success or a failure.

Traditional sales teams focus on the sale or, even more granularly, the achievement of sub-steps that can lead to a sale, but they might not always focus a majority of their efforts on the customer experience. According to Forbes:

84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue.

So instead of focusing on sales as a direct path to revenue, it's imperative to focus on customer experience as the direct path to revenue. Hiring online sales consultants (OSC) with this dedicated focus allows you to better serve consumers that shop for homes differently than they did 20, 10, or even two years ago. In this article, you'll learn more about what an online new home sales consultant is and is not, how they improve the customer experience, and other benefits online new home sales consultants can bring to your organization.

What is an Online New Home Sales Consultant?

Online new home sales consultants represent the home building or development company and assist individual homebuyers who are interested in the homes and communities. They handle tasks including:

• Managing and responding in a timely manner to online inquiries on new homes and communities
• Managing interest lists for “coming-soon communities” to keep interested home buyers up to date on opening dates, home designs, and site plan releases
• Scheduling appointments for online leads for personalized appointments with the onsite sales team
• Assist prospective homebuyers with homes and communities that best match their needs and lifestyles
• Consistently update prospective homebuyers and realtors on updates on communities, model openings, incentives, and price changes
• Pre-qualify prospects based on their area of interest, price point, and desired move-in date to help them find the right home and/or community

Unlike general real estate agents who work in the resale market, onsite sales agents represent the home builder or developer and assist home buyers when they visit for a community tour or call the community directly for information. As more and more consumers shop for homes online, have virtual showings and tours, and even buy properties without seeing them in person, the role of an online new home sales consultant becomes more vital than ever.

Because real estate markets are still transitioning to an optimal balance of online and in-person real estate experiences, online new home sales consultants can help smooth that transition. They can help your organization create standard processes to nurture online leads and convert them to in-person leads by identifying their perfect home online.

How an Online New Home Sales Consultant Improves Customer Experience

Customer experience is the cumulative set of interactions and engagements your customers have with your brand before, during, and after making a purchase. Optimizing customer experience is a priority for almost every organization, and there are two key lenses to view how you optimize the customer experience your company provides:

1. Making each stage of the experience as enjoyable as possible to strengthen your brand and create a positive home buying process
2. Mapping and streamlining the buyer's journey so there are as few obstacles as possible and your online leads convert to homebuyers faster.

Customer experience is an especially essential element in serving luxury real estate markets — or any real estate market. Online customer experience best practices center around creating a platform that is enjoyable to navigate, addresses the audience's pain points, and ultimately leads potential home buyers closer to a sale.

Online consultants pave the way by ensuring the homes and communities have a strong online presence, including professional photography, virtual and 3D tours, and videos so homebuyers can easily experience the home and community online. They also manage online inquiries in a timely manner to improve the customer experience and assist them in their home search in a personal way. 

Online Sales Consultants vs. On-Site Agents

However, when we describe an online new home sales consultant as an intermediary, that doesn't mean they just interface between your company and your prospects. They should instead act as a helpful guide for those prospects by answering their questions, making them feel more confident in the buying process, and otherwise ensuring that there are no frustration points in their journey. 

To that point, an OSC is not measured on their ability to get a contract signed, as is the case with an on-site agent. Instead, it’s their duty to help prospects identify homes that best match their needs and direct them towards that home, where an on-site agent easily closes the deal.

In order to do this effectively, OSCs must create an outstanding customer experience by:

• Making themselves available to calls, online chats, and other pressing inquiries a homebuyer may have
• Listening to their problems and goals to understand their situation and find a home and community that best suits them
• Ensuring they remain updated on the latest homes and communities that may be the perfect fit

By prioritizing customer success, OSCs can set more appointments and drive more home sales.

Why Online New Home Consultants are so Valuable

When your sales team is solely incentivized by metrics that don't holistically develop the customer experience, there's a disconnect that can definitely derail your sales and closing goals.

With the addition of online new home consultants, you can elevate your customer relationships and improve your conversion rate of leads to sales. They can guide leads to the ideal home and community to increase sales, provide a positive and less stressful home buying journey, and they can make sure even leads who do not turn into a sale still have great things to say about your brand and your team.

Partner With Milesbrand

Reaching your revenue goals by establishing milestones and metrics is one of the only ways to see if your sales campaigns and strategies are working. Creating a positive and easy home buying journey through both online and onsite team efforts will easily improve your success in reaching your goals.

Online home sales consultants, by design, focus on customer experience and elevating your brand. Contact our team at Milesbrand to learn how we can partner with you on your marketing and branding efforts to produce a compelling and successful online presence – and of course – reach your sales goals.