How Long Should it Take for your Transaction Coordinator to Start on Your New File

Yesterday I received a call from a Realtor interested in our Transaction Coordinating services. As always I want to get to know the callers before I launch into what we do, so I asked her to “please tell me about your business and why you are considering hiring a transaction coordinator at this time”. Sadly her reply was “well I’ve been trying to engage with one for a while, but having no luck”. She went onto tell me that she found a transaction coordinator (TC) in Transaction Coordinator Virginia who she spoke with once to interview and liked so she hired her. When she had a property under contract a few days later she emailed it excitedly to her new TC and left her a voicemail with some important details. More than a week later she called again to see how it was going only to be told by her new TC “I haven’t had the time to start on your file, I’ll get to it soon”. WHAT?!?!?! A week and she hasn’t started it – that’s absurd…..and totally unprofessional……… (picture smoke coming from my ears like in the cartoons we watched as a child) Immediately I apologized to the Realtor and assured her that while that person may have shared the title of TC with me, that was it. We laughed and she said she felt the same about her title as a Realtor, that not all of them met the standards she set for herself. As we chatted it became very clear to me that she is serious about balancing her home life with her business, making more time for her family and also growing her business. She was ready to leverage her time and simply looking for a reliable company to assist her. Moral of the Story: Just like any other industry, not all transaction coordinators are alike. Shop around, ask for referrals and check them, find out what their plan is when they take time off, how many years they have been doing this type of work, and what they do when they receive a file. Explain any trepidations you have about letting go and your preferred communication style. Like with any relationship it will take time for each of you to get to know and trust one another. After explaining to the Realtor our detailed service, that we start working within a few hours of receiving the file from our client and answering her questions, she told me she was impressed with how quickly I replied to her request for information and the commitment my team makes for providing our clients and their buyers/sellers with a smooth process from contract to close. Not only was she impressed, she’s also one of our newest clients and soon to be raving fan.