One thing that high-performing real estate agents excel at is forming strong relationships and building trust with their clients. While having brand recognition can give an agent a boost, they still need to be personable while providing meaningful service and a stratospheric level of communication.

For those working directly with clients, it can be an especially challenging landscape to navigate. Agents must manage client expectations and act as trusted advisors while juggling timelines, showings and communications. To help manage those expectations, effective and impactful communication is key.

Here are some tips on how to make your clients feel like their concerns, requests, wants, needs and communications all matter — because they do.

Be Active in Your Proactive Communication Plans

Each real estate transaction is unique and significant to the client. From checking their affordability and running down a list of homes that fit their price range to working with lenders and gathering all documents needed to process an offer to the sometimes confusing and stressful closing process, keeping organized can prove to be difficult.

And if information slips through the cracks or communications aren’t performed properly, it could fuel frustration, distrust and anxiety among your clients.

To make sure this never happens, start by committing to communicating proactively with your clients, and not just with good news. Some moments in a transaction process can be tough and having to deliver tough news or explain some hurdles along the way are necessary.

Also, add to your proactive communications by scheduling regular check-ins, such as once a week, when you’re actively working with your client. This way you know your clients will be as informed as you are, which boosts confidence and trust while diluting confusion and frustration.

Remember, even though you may have multiple projects going at once, you’re the main point of contact for your clients, whether they’re looking to buy or sell. By being available to them and proactive in your communication, you can ease doubts, worries and fears while creating a trustworthy experience for them.

Transparency is Key

Being transparent is all about being open and honest with your clients. With more and more information readily available about home listings, such as through real estate search engines, the industry has become more open and researchable. But there are still some areas that are opaque to clients, such as the process of going from contract to close or how agents like yourself get compensated.

By providing available information to your clients and answering what you are able to at that given time, you are promoting a healthy level of communication and trust between you and them. Also, by providing resources for clients to see how you operate on a daily basis such as a blog, a website or social media breaking down the selling process, how you get paid and what they can expect at closing, only elevates information they are desperately looking for.

By openly educating your clients on multiple levels, you are showing them that you’re not trying to hide anything and want to help them be informed and realistic about what they are looking for.

Communication Needs? There’s an App for That

HomeSmart has built an app specifically for the consumer: HomeSmart Client. The HomeSmart Client mobile app pulls all client information and transaction documents so buyers and sellers can have full visibility into the progress of their transaction from home search or property listing through closing.

While agents can schedule home tours, provide the best driving routes for a day of showings and message clients on their end in their RealSmart Agent App, their clients can upload images and take audio and text notes at each property in HomeSmart Client.

Ultimately, with total agent-client sync and real-time updates, HomeSmart Client helps clients and agents stay in touch throughout the entire process. HomeSmart has streamlined the back-and-forth that people go through when buying a home, making communication as on-the-go as everyone can be in the homebuying procedure. From images to messaging, quick questions to following up on speaking with lenders, everything can be done in a more transparent and efficient way.

At the end of the day, being an effective and personable real estate agent is all about connecting with clients in a meaningful and genuine way. By living this day in and day out, you’re consistently getting closer and closer to your clients and matching their needs.