A prospective buyer may be faced with many worries when it comes to making a new life in an unfamiliar area. Not least whether they’re choosing the right location for them. Things that are straightforward in their home country may seem difficult when faced with a new language and culture.
That’s where you can help.
By learning as much as you can about your local area and finding the answers to common worries your buyer may have, you can help to soothe their concerns and hopefully take them a step closer to making that purchase decision.
Let’s think about the kind of things your customers will be wondering:
- Will my family and friends be able to visit easily?
One concern weighing on your customers’ minds may well be the availability of flights to the region they settle in. Whether this is because they only plan to spend part of their time at the property and so need easy access or whether they will have family and friends who want to pop over to stay.
How you can help:
Find out about nearby airports as well as flight times and availability from a range of popular locations, remembering that these may change across the seasons.
This should help movers to feel less like they’ll be cut off from important family members.
- What is there to do in this region?
Your buyers will want to make sure that the area they chose suits their needs and gives them the quality of life there after. What better way to sound like you know a place well than to speak from first-hand experience about the things that are available to do there? Even if you don’t actually live in the area.
That way, if a customer asks what life is like you’ll be able to answer honestly.
How you can help:
Spend time on local beaches, visit popular tourist attractions and find out about golf courses and other sporting activities available locally. You could even use the excuse to visit any new bars and restaurants that appear. Why not learn which ones are popular with expats and in which ones the waiting staff speak good English or other languages to help your international movers feel more at home.
And remember, it’s not just about attractions that are available year-round. When you’re building your list of places of interest think about festivals or pop-up events that only appear in certain months of the year. You could even suggest that potential buyers visit at one of these times to truly experience your region at its best.
- Where can I learn the language?
One thing that will be of concern to a foreigner buying in Spain is their ability (or inability) to speak the language. If, during the course of your conversations with a potential buyer, you discover they’re worried about language barriers or would like to learn a few words, help them find out how.
How you can help:
Put buyers’ minds at rest, by suggesting local, reliable, translation services or language schools depending on their preference. Perhaps take it even further by collecting leaflets or price lists.
- Will I be able to arrange everything my family needs?
If your prospective buyer is moving their family internationally, they’ll have plenty of concerns about looking after the kids and providing for their needs in a new country. So, talk to them about their specific worries and see what you can do to quell them.
How you can help:
Find out about school options in the local area and make sure you understand the different types. It may be that your customer wants to immerse their young child in the language and culture by entering them into a local school, or it might be they feel an international school would be best for their pre-teen. You could even provide contact details or prospectuses as well as any ‘insider knowledge’ you’ve heard from other parents.
You could also find out about youth clubs and groups such as Scouts in the local area. Setting expat families up with just a few ideas of activities to get them started will work wonders for their confidence in terms of their ability to integrate into the local community.
- How will I find the best local service providers?
Anyone moving to a new location, especially if it’s a new country, will attest to the fact that finding reliable service providers can be tricky. Without local friends to ask for recommendations it can take time to build up a list of good quality tradespeople.
How you can help:
Build up a database of trusted local contractors and services, including builders, plumbers, cleaning companies, gardeners and any other tradespeople that might be of use. If you can collate this using recommendations from local friends or even past customers, all the better as you’ll know those you’re recommending are of good quality.
Help your whole team become experts
We often talk about the importance of consistency in the way your business deals with customers no matter who responds to their email or phone call. And this is no exception.
Set up a process for sharing local knowledge among your team. You could add a quick item to your team meeting agenda or set up a simple spreadsheet or even a paper file to keep track of useful information.
Most importantly embed a culture of ‘being helpful’ and incentivise staff to further their own local knowledge – you could make it part of their performance reviews or introduce an employee of the month award for those who go above and beyond in this area.
This list is far from exhaustive, but it’s these small things that will get you noticed and remembered. If you come across as an expert who is willing to share everything they know, buyers will warm to you. They’ll learn to trust your judgement and come back to you in preference to going elsewhere.
Which will ultimately mean more leads and more sales.
If your customers are looking for information about some of the most popular locations across Spain, why not send them a link to our new Kyero Location Guides.