From the previous post, I highlighted the importance of a local representative handling your property concerns. An active and clear communication line between the developer and the buyers representative is a prerequisite in resolving a situation.

Here below are some of the reasons why Filipinos abroad are hesitant in buying a property in the Philippines.

• THEY CANNOT CONTACT THEIR AGENT ANYMORE.

This is usually the first step whenever there is a problem that the buyer would like to address to contact their agent. The agent which is given the trust on one of the major purchases of the buyer on his lifetime has a fiduciary responsibility in making sure that the client  move in on his / her property without the stress of absorbing the internal concerns within the office of the developer.

• THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS THE FIRST STEP.

Lets say, the buyer tried to contact their agent. The agent, who sold them the property will not do anything, instead will come up with their own reasons such us:

 

 

 

Or the worse thing is you cannot contact your agent anymore which leads us to the next reason.

• THEY CANNOT CONTACT ANYONE FROM THE DEVELOPER.

After trying to get in touch with the agent, the next option for them would be to try and call the office hotline. At this moment, they are on their own. The usual problem here is the difference in timezone that they have to deal with resulting to them unanswered queries. Sending an email to the customer service? Good luck with that! We have received a lot of emails from various customers and all they got was an automated response like this one.

After countless follow ups, lets assume the buyer got lucky and they finally got in touch with a representative from the developer, what happens is they were given the…

• WRONG PROCESS TO RESOLVE CONCERN.

After an exchange of phone calls, emails and countless request to resolve concern, it is not uncommon that the buyer was given the wrong process to resolve it in the first place. It could be a product of the lack in training of the officer resulting into misinformation or lack of knowledge on the history of a particular account.

The high turnover for the customer service department would be the culprit in this reason. The particular  position is critical in the customer retention of the developer yet most of the buyers were passed around until such time that their account is ready for cancellation or is already flooded with penalties.

This is the sad reality for some of the buyers abroad.

In the long run, if the developers are still not aware of this trend, it will only affect their brand and how they do business with their buyers.