Three researchers have published an interesting study on how customer service can be improved by recognizing a customer’s stress level before a connection with your business is made.

For example, a customer can often be anxious over using a particular service, i.e., a funeral home or a lawyer in connection with a divorce. By learning more about how your clients feel when they call your business, you can better manage the customer experience. This offers your business a more effective customer base of referrals and repeat business.

The researchers identified the following steps to manage stressed-out customers:

1. Find out how your customers are feeling when they need your service.

One reason so many breast cancer facilities are free-standing, away from the main hospital complex, is because women voiced their ideas to the healthcare team designing the facilities. Women wanted coordinated care under one roof, but felt like the hospital was not a calming environment. Use your empathy to walk in your customer’s shoes to change the experience.

2. Hire not only for skill, but attitude and personality.

Employees who love their job can’t be trained. The passion and enthusiasm, even for a high-stress career like a cancer nurse or funeral director, cannot be taught. Look to bring on team members who have empathy for your customers and understand that business is all about customer service. It’s far easier to teach someone the skills needed for a job than it is to teach them to be motivated to work.

3. Study your approach to the customer’s journey.

How does your business interact with the client? From the first link online or phone call, to the payment options, what is the customer’s experience? Address the high-stress interactions by providing information about your services. For example, when calling to view a listing, what can your customer expect?

4. Give the customer more control over the service.

Dealing with a mechanic who tells you that your engine is shot is highly stressful. Instead, learn to be more specific and talk to the customer in a language that can be understood by someone without technical knowledge. Make sure your customer has one point-of-contact throughout their experience. Have a plan B in place for when that individual is sick or goes on vacation. Empower your customers through today’s technology, maybe an app that tracks the sale. There’s no excuse today for poor customer service and information.

I would highly recommend that every real estate professional read the research from Harvard Business Review. Leonard L. Berry, Scott W. Davis, and Jody Wilmet packed so much information into their report that there’s no way I could cover it all here.

This time of year is always difficult in terms of focus. We universally obsess over resolutions and try to be motivated to perfect our lives, but by this week, reality has set in and we still haven’t bought a home in Belize or lost 25 lbs.

If you’re a broker or team manager and are noticing this lethargy or discouraged state with your team, consider stepping up as a leader to get the team to refocus.

As the seasons change, so can our moods. It can be helpful to have quarterly check-ins with your team (either one-on-one or as a group) to discuss current methods, trends, what’s expected on either side, and what can be improved.

This form of open communication helps employees de-stress and may help them recharge and regain motivation. Another communicative form can be found in surveys.

Sending check-in surveys via email to your team to assess their feelings of the workload, the market, and to voice any concerns they have – it can be a great way to open the door for bigger, more important conversations. These surveys can be formatted to be answered anonymously, as well.

Be sure to always be accessible and focused yourself, as you’re setting the barometer of expectation. Allowing for this open communication can let you know what can be improved on your end, which can aid in refocusing.

Another way to bring your team together is by taking everyone out for a quarterly lunch. This helps your agents to bond, while also feeling like their work is being appreciated; therefore, motivating them to keep on producing well.

At the end of the day, you can’t be everyone’s friend, soo, if you’re observing behavior that seems to be unproductive or unfocused, don’t be afraid to speak frankly. Sometimes all it takes is for that behavior to be acknowledged to convince someone to step up their game.

Remember – each team and each manager is different. The attempt to get everyone on the same page and to continuously make strides as a team can take trial and error, but it’s something to always be cognizant of to avoid issues in the future and keep sales on track.

There are so many variables that go into operating an independent brokerage; so much so, that it makes coming up with the brokerage model look like the easy part.

One of the variables that takes (often the most) priority is money. You need to know what you’re spending versus what you’re making and how that adds up (pun intended).

Luckily, there are people out there laser focused on making sure that your business is properly tracking cash flow. One such business is flowpilot.

“flowpilot is the easiest way for businesses to plan and manage their cash flow actively. Cash flow planning has never been this easy!” said Founder and CEO, Bernd Thöne. “Simply upload your accounting data and get an overview of your current and forecasted cashflow. Recognize risks and optimization potentials early as they arise and get tips how to eliminate them. Make better decisions by easy and quick simulations simply without effort.”

Additionally, flowpilot presents a user’s liquidity in clear diagrams after analyzing the cash flow. It also allows a user to see projections up to five years in the future. Features include: precise liquidity management, sound decisions, and cash flow control liquidity calculation.

With flowpilot, users can achieve full transparency about the liquidity of their company. This way, they always know exactly where they stand and flowpilot can help you to make informed decisions.

The system uses real-time data in combination with AI algorithms to calculate liquidity forecasts and scenarios. With this, users can plan more strategically and create secure forecasts.

For liquidity calculations – flowpilot is serves as a financial advisor that is available at all times – the evaluation of a user’s financial data is handled by the program’s AI system.

Users register for free (a 14-day free trial is currently available), upload their initial bookkeeping, and then receive a monthly historical overview of their company, and the ability to intelligently plan cash flow as users automatically receive an informed liquidity plan for the next 12 months.

Lastly, you can recognize risks early on and switch to optimizing finances with scenarios built into the platform.

The company boasts itself as easy, smart, and fast. With a 14-day free trial, it could very well be worth a try for your brokerage for a competitive advantage in a world where only the mega-brokers financially forecast.