4 Exceptional Customer Service Strategies Zillow Uses to Lead the Real Estate Market
Zillow crushes more than just the housing market. Turns out, they offer exceptional service to all of their customers, too.
From helping first-time home buyers understand market rates to reaching the pinnacle of popularity – getting their own SNL skit – Zillow has emerged as a major disrupter in the real estate market.
In less than two decades since the company’s inception, they’ve grown at an exponential rate. In 2020 more than 9.6 billion people used the Zillow website and app. And now, TIME just inked a list naming Zillow one of the 100 Most Influential Companies in 2021.
So, how’d they accomplish so much in so little time?
It all starts with a keen focus on the customer and offering up an exceptional service. Learn the four reasons we’re crushing on Zillow this month.
1. They have a clear vision – and it’s all about helping customers.
Zillow’s mission statement is centered around making life easier for those who use their app. The company created a revolutionary product that allows people to take control of their own home buying and selling journey.
And yes, Zillow still works with realtors and professional entities, but their end goal is to make the moving process – which can be an absolute nightmare – simpler for people.
When you put people at the center of your mission, it shows. Every company has to prioritize their balance sheets and bottom line. But without the bigger picture, you’ll never deliver exceptional customer service and become an industry leader.
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2. They prioritize self-service help for exceptional customer service.
More than 60% of customers want to go to a company’s website and find the help they need instead of calling the contact center. Zillow keeps up with the trends. When customers (of any kind) head to their Help Center they find tons of FAQs to help them problem-solve without reaching out for help. And, Zillow even categorizes their self-help articles by user.
People who use Zillow to buy a home will have different questions than a realtor who needs to update a listing. Rather than lumping all their FAQs into one group and making users sift through all of them, they got specific. They only serve up content that’s relevant to each user’s needs. Once their customers choose the group that’s most relevant to them, they get access to detailed questions and answers with step-by-step instructions. Zillow’s self-help center proactively answers common questions to deliver exceptional customer service with only a few clicks of a button.
3. They care about all employees.
Not only is ZillowGroup a top-ranked place to work on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed, but the company is also taking a stance to make the workplace more equitable.
Back in 2016, ZillowGroup started publishing company data on gender, ethnicity representation and pay equity. They want total transparency around their hiring and compensation practices, so they can identify gaps and address them. And, they don’t just publish results and sit on what they find. They run a compensation analysis twice a year to make sure employees with similar roles are paid fairly. And if they’re not, they fix it.
Confronting leading workplace challenges around diversity & inclusion aligns with ZillowGroup’s mission of helping people. Employees show up to work and they know they’re valued just as much as their peers. That builds an outstanding and supportive culture where people thrive in their careers and in the exceptional service they offer to Zillow’s users and customers.
And, it turns out, focusing on inclusion in the workplace improves your customer service and your business outcomes, too. One study found that inclusive companies are 1.7x more likely to lead innovation in their field, and diverse companies outperform competitors by 35%.
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4. They take risks to achieve more for customers.
Have you heard of Zillow 2.0? Back in 2018, Zillow shifted from a purely digital business model to get into the weeds of the housing market. They launched Zillow Offers to start buying homes directly from consumers, making needed repairs, then reselling them.
Their goal? You guessed it: to make buying and selling homes easier for people.
Plenty of economists dubbed the shift a risky move for Zillow. But the CEO didn’t care because it inched the company closer to achieving their mission. And even in 2020, this leg of the business was still losing millions scooping up these homes from consumers.
Flashforward to 2021, and the story has already changed. Headlines that once read, Zillow is losing millions on selling homes now say Zillow is making bank selling homes.
The company took a big risk to expand their services for customers. Their leadership team goes all in on achieving their people-first mission, and it’s paying off for their bottom line, too.
