I set up a “profile” on Ziki.com about a month ago. I wasn’t real sure what it was then, and to be completely honest, I pretty much forgot about it. But over the last week or so, I notice in the blog visitor stats a few folks coming over from my Ziki profile.

Then today I get an email from Jody Raida on the Ziki team. It read:

Hi Jay, I’m Jody, from the Ziki Team. I noticed that you are a guru of the real estate industry and was wondering if you might be able to help Ziki in a small way. We’re expanding and looking to get new members in the US and one of the groups we’re targeting is real estate. Was wondering if you might be up for writing about Ziki in your blog or passing the word on to your friends/colleagues in the business.

Thanks so much!!
Jody

Well heck, anyone that’s nice enough to call me a “guru of the real estate industry” can have just about anything they ask for. Especially one that assumes I have friends! (or at least friends that will listen to me…)

So what is a Ziki? May as well just let the Zikians (Zikites?) explain it:

A ziki is a place where members can:

- gather all their personal information and digital content published over the Internet (blogs, photos, podcats, videos, ..), - gather their various profiles (Linkedin, Viaduc, OpenBC, MySpace 6nergies…) on one page, * describe their personality, center of interests, skills, and talents with their own keywords to efficiently network with other members.

It is fast, simple and easy. Each member can create a personal ziki, a company ziki or a ziki group (any formal or informal group). (for more)

Right now, there are 6,532 Ziki’s in existence. Be one of the first 10,000 to sign up, and Ziki will sponsor your name for free on the Big 3 search engines. Personally, I’m not sure I get the point in this, but it’s sort of cool. And it’s legit, here’s a snip of the Google Sponsored Links for “Jay Thompson”:

It looks to me like most of the 6500ish Ziki’s are from folks in Europe (almost 2,600 in France alone). Only about 1,000 in the US, and very few from the real estate biz (so few that I know most of them!). Here’s a chance to jump in early on something that has who knows what potential.

Jody from Ziki says that they want to increase their US based membership and are targeting real estate. It’s another web page with your name, URL, and other info to have out there on the big ol’ Internet. And it’s free. Why not do it?
.

Technorati Tags: Ziki

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You may (or may not) have read here before that real estate agents who don’t answer their phones are a pet peeve of mine. I just don’t understand it. If you don’t want to answer a phone, you probably shouldn’t try to make a living selling real estate. The phone rings. A lot. It needs to be answered.

There are countless examples out there of agents not answering the phone. It’s a fact that agents (and their clients) have lost out on a sale due to a phone not being answered.

But what’s transpired here over the last couple of days set a new standard. I find it…. well, unbelievable, stupendous, incomprehensible. I’m not sure there is a word in the lexicon that truly fits…

I’m not making this up folks. I couldn’t invent this.

My lovely bride has a buyer. They are very interested in a nice east side condo. (The last one they made an offer on fell out when the inspector discovered extensive past fire damage in the attic. The poor owner had no clue as he waived his inspection — a really bad idea. But that’s another blog post.)

We have some questions for the listing agent. Just typical standard stuff. Plus we like to “feel out” the listing agent — glean a little info from them that will better position our buyers.

So Francy places the first call on Tuesday.

No answer, leave message. No return call. Repeat five times.

I don’t get it. If an agent leaves a message on my phone along the lines of, “We have a buyer interested in your listing. Please call so we can clarify a couple of things. It will take three minutes of your time”, I call them back. Swiftly. Don’t I owe that to my clients? But I digress…

Two days later, it’s quite apparent that the agent is never going to return our calls. So Francy calls the listing agent’s office. The person answering the phone, another agent, is of no help. So Francy asks to speak to the Broker.

He seems to be a nice guy. Francy reiterates that we have a very interested buyer, but we really need to speak to the agent and she’s not returning calls. Now for those not in the business the Broker is, in effect, the agent’s boss. Normally a call like this to the Broker results in the agent calling us within 5 minutes. (Typically with some excuse as to why they haven’t been able to place a three minute return call sometime over the last 72 hours.)

And here’s where this story takes the remarkable turn….

The Broker’s response?

“Oh, that agent doesn’t answer the phone. You need to email her your questions.”

WTF? Francy, who is usually never short of words, is speechless. About all she can muster is a polite, “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, she never answers the phone. Just email her. If you don’t hear back in a day or so, just let me know.”

What the double F? A “day or so”?!?

I wonder — does this agent tell her clients, “Don’t call me, I never answer the phone. Just email me and I’ll get back to you within a day or so”. Maybe she needs to take her number out of the MLS and just put a comment in the agent remarks section along those same lines. I wonder — does this Broker make a habit of employing agents that don’t answer the phone? Maybe that’s how he markets his brokerage — “COME WORK FOR US, NEVER ANSWER A PHONE AGAIN!”

Its insanity. Pure unadulterated madness!

Tip for those looking for a real estate agent: Call your prospective agent. See if they answer the phone. Sure, you can’t always answer it. I tend not to when I’m with a client. But if your prospective Realtor doesn’t answer or rapidly return the call, continue your search. If they won’t return your call, it’s safe to assume they won’t return calls inquiring about YOUR home for sale.

Technorati Tags: bad real estate agents

Arizona schools take a beating in the press on a regular basis. Charter schools in particular are often targeted. Certainly some of it is warranted, some of it, not-so-much.

Both of our kids went to a *fabulous* charter school in Gilbert. It has a waiting list that is the envy of some colleges. Small class sizes, focused in Mathematics, Science and Language Arts. Fantastic, dedicated teachers. It is a model of what charter schools and public education should be.

Then a story like this comes along. Some sick twisted freaks manage to get a 29 year old pervert enrolled as a seventh grader in a Chino Valley charter school (about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix). At first glance, it kind of makes the whole state education system look incompetent.

Let’s try not to rush to judgement and condemn the entire State of Arizona school system (though in listening to the talking heads on some local radio stations, it may be too late). They did catch these nut jobs. How they ever managed to let the guy step foot in a classroom is hard to fathom, but at least the ploy was discovered before Lord knows what happened. It’s not the fault or a flaw of the state education system. There ARE some great schools in Arizona. And yes, there are some lousy ones too. But show me one state where there aren’t some bad schools. I don’t think anyone can. 

The best thing that could come out of this is having these folks locked up for a long, long time. Hopefully Mr. Neil Havens Rodreick II and the others involved enjoy their introductions to Bubba and the Boys down in Florence. It be nice if little Neil ended up on this list, but that’s wishful thinking.

Technorati Tags: Arizona schools

Aaron Dickinson, a realestate blogger out of Minnesnowta has posted this weeks Carnival results. Aaron did a great job!

One of my all time favorite bloggers Kris Berg gets top nod. Kris rocks the Bloodhound and The San Diego Home Blog. If you haven’t been reading her material, you’ve been missing out on one of the best in the blogiverse.

This was my first trip to Aaron’s blog, and it gets added to the feed reader.  Check it out while you’re there.

Things were a little light here on TPREG so we had no submission for this week. Stay tuned for next weeks ride.

Technorati Tags: Carnival of Real Estate, CoRE, Kris Berg

I’m a big fan of superior customer service. When I’m a customer, I want it. When someone is my customer, I want to deliver it.

I can’t pin down exactly when it started, but there seems to be a serious lack of customer service happening these days. Cell phone providers and cable companies may have the “horrific customer service” market cornered. But there are glaring examples of really lousy customer service everywhere. Too many to write about.

Sadly, it is difficult at times to relate a story about superior customer service. They just don’t seem to happen very often.

Enter this experience for me that occurred almost exactly 24 hours ago:

I was editing our main website, a Point 2 Agent real estate website. (Purists may scoff at a template based site. Whatever. This thing does what it should do, it provides information for our site visitors and it generates leads for our business by the boat load.)

I still don’t know exactly what I did, but I was knee deep in the CSS and HTML coding of our menu structure. Like an idiot, I was doing the development on the home page with no testing. Well sure enough, I blew something up; rendering the site completely non-functional in Internet Explorer and barely functional in Firefox.

Having no access to root level files (one drawback of a template site, though understandable why they can’t allow it), I was dead in the water. There was no way to fix this without Point 2 tech support and it was 7:30pm on a Saturday night. It was a virtual given that my site would be down until Monday morning.

In a measure of desperation, I posted a plea for help on the Point 2 user forum. I thought maybe there was an offhand chance a moderator would see it and be able to do something. I figured those chances lay somewhere between slim and none, but I had to at least try.

Just less than two hours later, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. But I did recognize the 306 area code as being from Saskatchewan, Canada - the home of Point 2 Technology. I answer, and it’s one Barry Willick from Point 2. I’d seen Barry’s posts on the Point 2 forum, and I knew that he knows his stuff. In just a few minutes Barry was able to get me back inside my site editor so I could fix the mess I made of the code. An hour later, we’re back on line.

Now I thought this was superior customer service. Here’s a guy calling me at 10:30pm his time on a Saturday night to help me fix a problem than was completely my fault.

I fired off an email that evening to the Chief Operating Officer of Point 2 Realty Solutions, Brendan King, who I’ve talked to and corresponded with in the past. I wanted him to know how pleased I was with the superior customer service Barry provided. In fact, I made a very unsubtle “hint” that Barry deserved a raise. OK, it wasn’t even a hint. What I said was, “Whatever you’re paying him isn’t enough”.

Brendan responded with a chuckle. Turns out Barry isn’t just some customer support guy. Barry Willick is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Point 2. The CTO making a personal call at a time when a significant portion of the population has retired for the evening isn’t just great customer service. THAT oh avid reader is unrivaled, transcendent, preeminent customer service.

That is a level of customer service that anyone in any service industry should strive for. And if you don’t think real estate is a service industry, then you need to consider a new profession.

Technorati Tags: customer service, Point 2 Agent, Barry Willick