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Customer Experience Radio Welcomes: Paige Holden with XONEX Relocation

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Paige Holden is the President of XONEX Relocation, a full-service global relocation management firm. As the second generation of management, Paige has in-depth knowledge of the company’s growth and development trajectory and will lead XONEX’s highly-trained team of relocation experts into the future.

She oversees all departments of the company and works closely with Katherine Holman, Founder and CEO, to ensure that corporate strategy is aligned with client service and operational goals.

Paige served XONEX from 2010-2015 as the Director of Communications. In this role, she oversaw the development of XONEX’s award-winning mobile application for transferees. She was the driving force behind XONEX’s thought leadership platform and marketing campaigns, including regularly released whitepapers, ebooks and blog posts.

Prior to returning to XONEX in 2018, Paige co-founded Snag-A-Slip, an online boat slip rental site, and Oasis Marinas, a full-service marina management firm. With her team, she grew the companies up from the ground to a successful, $6 million Series A close.

Paige has a master’s in business administration from the Robert H. Smith School at the University of Maryland, and a bachelor of science in public relations from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University.

Follow Xonex on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Customer Experience Radio, brought to you by Heineck & Company, real estate advisors specialized in corporate relocation. Now, here’s your host, Jill Heineck.

Jill Heineck: [00:00:18] Good morning and welcome to this very special edition of Customer Experience Radio. I’m your host, Jill Heineck, and I’m a business owner, real estate advisor, and a customer experience enthusiast. As many of you know, my boutique real estate group has specialized in helping families move with a job for the last 20 years.

Jill Heineck: [00:00:36] So, I’m excited to have Paige Holden on the show today to talk about her company and how they’re delivering a great client experience in today’s climate. Paige is the president of XONEX Relocation, a third-party relocation management company, or RMC, as we call it, in the industry, based out of Wilmington, Delaware. And they are hired by corporations to facilitate executive moves. For those of you that are unfamiliar with relocation management companies, they typically serve as an extension of the company and outsourced relocation department, if you will. The main goal is to alleviate the administrative burden of relocations by managing all the moving parts, pun intended. So, I want to welcome Paige. Thank you so much for taking the time out.

Paige Holden: [00:01:22] Thank you, Jill. Thanks for having me-

Jill Heineck: [00:01:24] Of course.

Paige Holden: [00:01:25] … in here.

Jill Heineck: [00:01:26] I am so glad to see you. I know that, normally, we have our Spring Relocation Conference that has gone virtual. And so, kind of bummed that we aren’t all getting to be together in person. But I’m glad you were able to join us today and talk to us a little bit about what’s happening in your world as it relates to relocating executive employees, and their teams, and what you’re seeing. But first, let’s start, like kind of give us a little background on you and how you got there.

Paige Holden: [00:01:59] Well, this would be my second tour at XONEX Relocation. In full disclosure, I’d be second generation at XONEX. I was with XONEX, actually, and I think we may have met back then, in 2010. And my goal with XONEX at that time was to develop a more robust marketing and thought leadership platform for the company. It was back in the time when like Twitter was new, and all of the social media and these digital tools were coming to play. And that was my focus then.

Paige Holden: [00:01:59] I did leaves XONEX for a little bit to go do some startup work. I wanted to build something from the ground up. I think it’s in my genes. I started with an entrepreneurial spirit, and I just felt like I needed to pursue that. So, I went and I did two startups. We brought them to a series A close that’s in the boating industry. So, it’s far away from real estate and relocation as you could get, but it was a ton of fun. And when I felt like I had learned tools to be a good leader, tools to come back into a business environment like XONEX, I came back. And I came back to XONEX in September of 2018. And it’s been off to the races ever since, getting the team together. And then, we’re building all sorts of new toys that we’re looking forward to emerging with when we get out of quarantine.

Jill Heineck: [00:03:27] So, what is your role right now? What do you do? What’s entailing your role now?

Paige Holden: [00:03:33] Right now, it is leadership, right? Coming into a company and getting to know your team, making sure you have the right players in the right seats doing what they’re good at doing, so that everyone’s operating towards positive goals and success. Of course now, in the time of COVID, that leadership role is critical, right? You want to keep the game together. We’re all remote. And so, a lot of the job today is keeping in touch and making sure everybody feels like they’re still part of the XONEX family. And in addition to that, I’m back with my background in marketing and IT spearheading new technology and marketing campaigns.

Jill Heineck: [00:04:21] Excellent. So, how are you feeling about being back? I mean, I know it’s been a few years now, but I mean,you’re not just focused on your fun marketing stuff that you’re bringing in before, right? So, how is that adding like another layer to your day? I mean, are you feeling like the marketing, still, is a big part of it or are you having to delve more to operations?

Paige Holden: [00:04:46] Yes, it feels great to be back. I learned so much. When you start a company from nothing, from a ping pong table in the basement of your buddy’s house to raising $6 dollars, you learn by fire, you learn a lot of lessons, you get stronger in a lot of ways, and you’re forced to look at other areas of the business, not just marketing, which had historically been my path. So, to come back with those skills was huge for me, and I’m enjoying being able to use the tools that I learned at Snag-A-Slip and Oasis, the name of the companies that we founded, here at XONEX.

Paige Holden: [00:05:29] And again, a lot of it is leadership. A lot of that is identifying your team and making sure that you have the right people in the right roles. And you get involve in operations. I definitely went around and tried to meet as many of our supplier network as I could in the first year. I was at all the ERC events. I was all local events. We are also women-business enterprise. So, I was at all the WBENC events, which is the Women Business Enterprise National Council. Just getting out, and meeting, and, reading and understanding what had changed in the industry since I left or what were things that I just didn’t know because it wasn’t my role to know them. That was tremendous amount of fun.

Paige Holden: [00:06:08] Marketing will always be part of my sphere just because that’s my history, my background, and my knowledge. And thankfully, my experience in digital tools has been profoundly helpful in this time because XONEX, historically, an office environment and traditional office environment, in one week, we went to a full virtual remote office with everybody on the same page. I’m so impressed with my team. And a lot of that is just having knowledge of tools that we can use, be it Zoom, be it Slack to keep teams together in a remote place. And those lessons that I’ve learned throughout my career and, of course, will Snag-A-SLip and Oasis have been instrumental in getting us through this COVID time.

Jill Heineck: [00:06:59] So, that’s interesting. Let’s talk a little bit about that. So, now that within a week, you’re virtual, how are you keeping your teams cohesive and engaged, so that they can continue to provide and deliver the experience that your clients have come to expect while you’re virtual? How is that working for you?

Paige Holden: [00:07:23] It’s working really well. And we talk about customer experience. We’re here at a customer experience show. And I’m a firm believer that you can’t deliver a good experience for your customers if you’re not doing well yourself. It starts with your own company, and it starts with your, we call it the XONEX family, being healthy and being happy. And so, when this started to unfold back in early March, XONEX made the decision to get everybody working from home before the state’s required it. It gave us some time to get accustomed to the idea before we went to shelter in place, which was helpful, that forward-thinking approach to just getting everybody set up and comfortable before the news that’s coming in. So, that’s step one.

Paige Holden: [00:08:18] Step two was just getting everybody on the same page about what virtual norms look like. So, we moved the company over to Slack, which is an online platform where teams can engage and talk to one another. I felt really strongly that we needed a place for all of us to congregate. And we started that immediately. And we have norms. So, everybody, we check in with each other every morning. We say goodnight to each other at the end of the day. We have channels for the specific teams, and we’ve prioritized Slack as our number one communication channel for the company so that everybody can feel engaged and understand what’s going on at the same time.

Paige Holden: [00:08:56] And then, also, show their personalities a little bit. You know it’s funny, I’m learning more about the people on my team through digital tools than I knew in a traditional office environment because we shared sense of humor or someone is Zooming where I can see how they’re interacting with one another. And that’s been, I think, great for the whole group. So, everybody feels connected.

Paige Holden: [00:09:19] We’ve also done little things like for Easter, we had a contingent of us drive around and drop cupcakes off at people’s homes. And we’ve done mailings, and we’ve done mailings for our clients. We’re sending our clients a little – I don’t know if you’ve seen them but they’re like the hook extenders that you can hit an elevator button with or you can open up-

Jill Heineck: [00:09:44] Oh, yeah.

Paige Holden: [00:09:44] So, one of our team members actually has a new printer, and he made 25 of them, and we’re gonna send them out to our clients as a touchpoint. So, it’s finding ways to engage with your team even if you can’t be there face-to-face. And thankfully, we’ve done that. And then, of course, you just have the IT networking aspect of it, making sure everybody has a laptop, everybody’s got a webcam, so that we can see everyone’s face on Zoom, and so on and so forth. And fortunately, because it was part of our business continuity plan from the get go, we were able to roll that out very quickly as well.

Jill Heineck: [00:10:22] So, you’re feeling like you were well prepared culturally before, and then it was just easy for you to transition and may maintain that culture virtually?

Paige Holden: [00:10:33] Absolutely. It’s an incredibly proud moment, I think, for everybody that has a stake in XONEX and its future. And I’m just really grateful for the team I have. Truly blessed that everybody was able to kind of rally and adapt as quickly as they have. That’s not always the case, but we’re a very close-knit company. Our average tenure is 10 years.

Jill Heineck: [00:11:00] Wow!

Paige Holden: [00:11:01] And so, it’s really a family, when I say that. It’s like, “Okay, guys, this is what we’re doing,” and everybody jumped on board. And I actually think we’re going to come out of this even stronger and closer. And I’m looking forward to that day that we can all gather in our big boxes and kind of celebrate what we were able to accomplish.

Jill Heineck: [00:11:22] So, how big of a team do you have now?

Paige Holden: [00:11:25] We have about 30 people now. And about 25 in office with 5 satellite folks.

Jill Heineck: [00:11:33] Excellent. And so, from a customer experience perspective, what are kind of the cornerstones of service delivery for you at this point? And has anything changed since you went virtual?

Paige Holden: [00:11:49] That’s a great question. Nothing has changed  in terms of our service delivery, except for, perhaps, we are probably touching base even more than we normally would have just because we have a compassionate group of people who really want to help. XONEX’s service has always been one of our differentiators. All of our counselors who deal with homeowner transferees, for example, are active, licensed realtors with CRP credentials. And then, the folks that handle our global population are all mobility specialists.

Paige Holden: [00:12:27] So, even before COVID, we felt that the best way to support our clients was to to provide them with counselors that truly had on-the-ground experience, especially in real estate. And that’s helpful in any case, but it is helpful now when we have transferees that,”Do I sell or do I not sell? What do I do? And how do I go through this? And how do I walk through the process?” And it’s actual realtors that are counseling them. So, that’s been instrumental, but it’s really no different than anything that we’ve always done at XONEX.

Paige Holden: [00:13:06] And being remote doesn’t change the way that we can counsel our transferees, and it doesn’t change the way that we can counsel our clients. And in fact, we’re so intensely focused right now on making sure that everybody is okay. I think our service delivery is probably stronger and better than it’s ever been before. Because with relocation, there’s a lot of compassion that’s required and empathy that’s required on a good day. And then, you add the COVID into the mix, and you have these folks that have worked with these transferees for so long, they care about them so much. It’s just it lends itself nicely to our group because I know our group is the right group to help counsel these nervous transferees.

Jill Heineck: [00:13:57] I will tell you that as a real estate agent on the ground here working with transferees, it does make a big difference when the relocation management company is working, is employing consultants that are licensed that have understanding behind it, had maybe potentially worked in the field before on a team or individually, but just have a good understanding as to what the transferee is going through. And I think with that partnership with the local agent, I think that makes such an amazing team for the transferee. So, I really do appreciate that. And I think you’re absolutely right, it makes a huge difference.

Jill Heineck: [00:14:42] So, generally speaking, in your view, how do you measure or what does a successful client experience look like to you? And I know that that could run in two parts. It could be the actual corporate client who is engaging you, and then the experience of the transferee, which is, I say, secondary but it’s really not secondary, it’s actually the reason they engage you for counsel and for help with the transferee. But how do you measure that success? Where do you see things that are happening the best for your company right now?

Paige Holden: [00:15:23] Well, from the transferee perspective, we measure success with performance questionnaires throughout their move. So, you’re looking at just metrics, we do that, and we have always done that. And we’ve always done interim things as well, so that we understand what’s happening with the move beginning, middle and end. And we don’t just wait until the end of the move to get feedback because we want to run the ship if the ship isn’t going in the right direction.

Paige Holden: [00:15:54] Anecdotally, what does success look for us in this time, I review … We call them PQs, our performance questionnaires. And I review them on a weekly basis because we’d just like to know. I don’t know. I’m curious that way. And I guess, yesterday, I was reviewing them, probably, in preparation for speaking to you. And one of the comments was, “I just want to say my family was so scared. We didn’t know if we would be able to sell our home. We didn’t know if we’d be able to get into a new home.” This is a transferee that’s working for a company on the frontlines of providing necessary services to the entire United States. “I didn’t know what to tell my children. I didn’t know what to tell my wife. And you held my hand every step of the way through it. And I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.” And that’s a true comment-

Jill Heineck: [00:16:49] Amazing!

Paige Holden: [00:16:49] … that we got from a transferee moving in the middle of all of this with so much uncertainty. It just left the impression on me that that counselor, she really went above and beyond. She really made a connection with this family, and she made them feel safe. And even though we have some struggles out there on the relocation industry right now, I mean, the regulations from state to state, from county to county are different even, to be able to work through some of the supply chain issues in relo and not let that family feel it, to me, that success.

Jill Heineck: [00:17:33] I have to agree, if they don’t need to feel that that is our job to alleviate. And I agree with you, that’s a great way to measure success. So, what are your corporate clients saying to you in this time or even before? What are some great examples of how you’ve been able to serve from a corporate perspective?

Paige Holden: [00:17:57] Yes. So, the biggest, when this started, we had the first wave of, “What do we do?” And I think every relocation company probably. What do we do with that? We’ve got global assignees out there all over Europe, in Asia. We’ve got people in temp living that are supposed to be leaving temp living or coming into temp living and you know what happens. So, initially, a lot of it was to pause those in assignments, and get the information, and  not make knee-jerk reactions. And then, collect as much information as possible to guide our clients in the right way. So, in some cases, that looked like your global assignee just needs to stay put for a few months in Hong Kong or whatever. And in other cases, it means, yo”Y know what? Maybe we’re gonna have to extend temporary living on the front end if they can’t move on the back end.”

Paige Holden: [00:18:57] The challenge we have in relo right now, again, is it’s varies market to market, state to state, county to county, policy to policy. And so, the biggest piece of advice I could give for anybody in this right now working with clients is you just really have to understand your clients’ goals. We have the conversations about what is the reasonable exception to policy in this time. The counsel that there might be some additional expenses as we incur more temporary living costs, or we can’t get these houses sold as quickly as maybe, historically, we could; although, we haven’t really seen too much of a problem right now with those. And just managing the expectations, having a plan, and understanding each individual circumstance.

Paige Holden: [00:19:47] And then, communicating it effectively to the client. We have an amazing chief customer officer who’s been reaching out to them on a regular basis to understand changes in their programs. And certainly, if we start to see some trends that are going to impact that client, getting ahead of it before it becomes a fire drill is our goal. So, it’s kind of-

Jill Heineck: [00:20:08] So, talk to us a little bit about what is happening with those assignees that are outside the US that potentially were coming back before this all went down. They were supposed to come back to the US or coming for an assignment in the US. What happened? I just can’t imagine. I was just listening to the news and how people have been stranded on cruise ships for all these months because they just weren’t allowed to come back. So, what happened? How are some of your clients managing those?

Paige Holden: [00:20:43] For the most part, our clients have just had everybody stay put. We’ve extended living arrangements and it’s been a shelter in place. We don’t know exactly. At least, in immigration is going to vary drastically from country to country. So, the immediate reaction is everybody kind of stay put, let’s be safe, let’s shelter in place, and then see what happens from a visa immigration perspective coming back into the US or going out, and what happens there? And I think we’re still trying to gather that information. But right now, for the most part, our clients have kept everybody where they are.

Jill Heineck: [00:21:30] And so, are your counselors, do they have a special additional layer of communication touch points where they’re reaching out to those that are sheltering in place where they didn’t expect to be this long, and just checking in with them and saying what else can they be doing to help them kind of assuage the tension that might be happening?

Paige Holden: [00:21:52] Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s exactly what we do. And because XONEX works with the single point of coordination model for each client, the folks that are out on assignment, they’re accustomed to dealing and working with one specific counselor who’s been able to build a rapport over time. And in some cases, we have assignees that have been out there for 10 years that have been working with the same counselor. And so, it’s just that regular check in, and checking in with the client to see what they want to do, and then checking in with the assignee to make sure they’re okay, and then trying to arrange services as needed.

Jill Heineck: [00:22:32] Excellent. So, going back to the experience of the transferee, is it your practice to have … I mean, how many contact points is there for one transferee within XONEX? And is it just the one counselor contact? Or is there many people reaching out to this transferee? And what do you find works well and what doesn’t?

Paige Holden: [00:23:00] We have always worked for this single point of coordination model. We feel that the transferee needs a person that they can trust that walks them through the whole relocation that will know and understand what’s going on with their relocation as opposed to, say, calling a call center and getting flipped around to a group of people. So, we have always, always had a single point of coordination model. And I think that’s been extremely helpful in this time because it helps to ease a little bit of anxiety.

Paige Holden: [00:23:32] That being said, there are some cases,we’re coordinating a household goods move, they may have to set up their time schedules with the movers, or walk through what the safety plan is, or for PPE or wherever it is. But our counselors are always quarterbacking the whole relo. And-

Jill Heineck: [00:23:52] Excellent.

Paige Holden: [00:23:52] … move them beginning, middle and end throughout.

Jill Heineck: [00:23:58] So, talk to me a little bit about how … you mentioned supply chain earlier, and I know that that, obviously, is another layer to relo, and how that can really impact the client/transferee experience.

Paige Holden: [00:24:12] Sure.

Jill Heineck: [00:24:12] So, what is happening on the supplier side in terms of movers and just getting stuff from A to B?

Paige Holden: [00:24:22] Yeah, right? That whole moving part, it it’s very state-by-state-dependent. In some cases, county-by-county-dependent. Moving companies, they are all taking more precaution. Of course, they’re wearing protective gear, gloves, masks. In some cases, I think, in a lot of cases, actually, I know the moving companies that we’re working with are doing virtual surveys of the home just to limit the amount of exposure.

Jill Heineck: [00:24:55] How was that working?

Paige Holden: [00:24:56] I think it’s working pretty well. I haven’t heard any any reason why it wouldn’t be working. And I think that there were some trends going in that direction before this even happened that maybe celebrated virtual serving. We’ve seen with some companies out there, they’ve gotten ahead of that. And now, companies are catching up. So, it’s very interesting to see from a digital perspective what happens there. But I believe it’s working out very well. And it’s certainly calming fears. We have run into transferees who just simply do not want movers in their home, and they’re scared. And that’s okay. And in those cases, maybe, we can work with the self-move, or container or, move or something to that effect. But for the most part, virtual service, protective gear, and following, of course, all state and local guidelines for what businesses can do on the moving company side.

Paige Holden: [00:25:56] On the temporary living side, we’ve had similar challenges. There are rules. I know here in Delaware, and I know in certain places around the country where short-term leases are no longer an option. So, for those, we have to work within the guidelines that they have to stay put or we’re working with extended stays maybe that they can do something. But the temp living, that’s been a challenge. It’s been temp living, I know that for a fact. And I don’t know when that will lift, but [crosstalk]-

Jill Heineck: [00:26:34] And again, to your point, it’s going to be state to state, it’s county to county, city to city. There-

Paige Holden: [00:26:41] It is. And we’ve been lucky, at least, with the transferees that were already in temp living that they’ve been allowed to stay. And that gets into the extension of temporary living in terms of policy and exceptions. And companies need to be aware that that’s going to be happening, that you’re going to have extended temporary living, which is going to drive temporary living cost. And then, in the cases where we just can’t do it, maybe holding the relo a little bit to see how things open up.

Jill Heineck: [00:27:10] I just had two families relocating, one from Chicago and one from Florida, and they could not find. It took them a while to find a temp. They have a family. So, they didn’t want to be in a hotel. So, they wanted to do an Airbnb, and they made a reservation, and then found out like 48 hours before that they were like, “You know what? We don’t want anybody in our house.” And so, then, they’re like, “There’s two other options in all of metro Atlanta for us to bring our family of five. Like, this is insane.” And, luckily, at the last minute, we’re able lock something down. But I can’t imagine if you’re doing a bigger move than one family, how hard that must be to try to coordinate this. And then, outside of just logistics, you’re talking about you’re trying to temper emotions, and when are we getting on the job to be productive, and all these things play into it, right?

Paige Holden: [00:28:11] Right.

Jill Heineck: [00:28:12] So, how have your clients been responding to you? How have they been interacting with you during this time?

Paige Holden: [00:28:22] I think that they’ve been grateful to have a support. I know that we deal with clients in different capacities from company to company that have different responsibilities that go beyond relocation. And so, we try to be sensitive to that as well. Our HR folks out there are dealing with a whole litany of issues that just go so far beyond relo that we just try to give as much helpful information as we can, as succinctly as possible, understanding that they’re they’re stressed, and they’re busy, and that they’re juggling a lot of balls in the air.

Paige Holden: [00:29:00] Just being there for their transferees, solving problems before they get to the corporate client is the best way to alleviate stress, I think, across the board. We believe that even in good times. It’s our job to make everything look smooth and seamless. And I think that our clients really appreciate that, especially as they’re juggling so many things. So, providing good counsel, being there for them, being responsive, treating their transferees really well. These are all tenets at XONEX, this philosophy that go back years, but it’s more important today that we have good communication, and we have good practices and procedures, and that we communicate effectively.

Jill Heineck: [00:29:51] When you say being responsive, what does that look like to you?

Paige Holden: [00:29:56] We have a sunset rule at XONEX, and it goes across the board from my desk to the newest person on the team. And the sunset rule means that we don’t end the day without getting back to whoever reached out to us that day. Even if you don’t have an answer, even if you haven’t solved the problem from soup to nuts, just letting someone know, “I hear you. I’m looking on your problem. It’s my top priority. And I’m going to start tomorrow. And we’re gonna work through this.” That’s, again, been a philosophy at XONEX for a very long time. It’s been a practice we’ve put in place for a very long time. And I think it’s great that we have those procedures because, now, in the time of COVID, you get more phone calls, you get more anxiety, and it’s important to be responsive. So, what does responsiveness look like to me, it means that nobody goes 24 hours without, at least, a comment back that I hear you and I’m working on it.

Jill Heineck: [00:30:54] I love that. I think it’s fantastic. I think no news is not good news for a lot of people, particularly in a transferee situation. And even me being one of the counselors that’s helping during a relo, I feel like I want to hear from the relocation company, or the mortgage company, or whoever. I want to hear from those people that we’ve been trying to make sure we can satisfy the questions and the concerns of the client before the end of day. Nobody wants to go to sleep not knowing.

Paige Holden: [00:31:28] No. And it’s even … obviously, as things come in, we want to solve them. Counselors don’t want to have that nagging. So, it’s amazing what the power of just, “I’m on it,” can do to just alleviate concerns, that that your concern has been acknowledged, and that it’s in process of being worked out. It’s huge.

Jill Heineck: [00:31:56] It is huge. And I don’t want to get too in the weeds on tactics, but I’m just curious. From a communications platform perspective, do you and do your counselors have a platform that they log in or the transferee logs into a platform where they communicate, or is it like just basic texting, or email, or calls? It’s a combination? How are they communicating on a consistent basis?

Paige Holden: [00:32:25] It’s a combination. So, XONEX is built on its own proprietary technology. So, we have portals that both the client can go in and see in real time what’s happening with their transferees and assignees. And then, we have a portal for the transferees and assigness that they can see what’s happening in their relocation. We have mobile apps that help them do the functional things of moving, those expenses, and so on and so forth. And in our technology message boards that everybody can watch, and review, and see what’s going on.

Paige Holden: [00:32:56] But then, there’s emails and there’s phone calls. We try to walk through the communications channel that that transferee prefers. And so, it can also be text messaging. Every transferee likes to be communicated with differently. And it depends, too, on the issue. Like for me even, even if I want to have a phone call, I want a phone conversation about, and sometimes I’m like, “Oh, just text it to me.” And so, we try to give the right space on what the transferee has opted into and opted out of. So, we use all tools, and they can see, they have their own portals to log into, yeah.

Jill Heineck: [00:33:37] And you mentioned a success story a little bit earlier. I didn’t know if you had another one that stands out in your mind about either a transferee or a corporate client who reached out to you, just let you know how well your program was received with the transferee. I don’t know if you had any other stories that you’d like to share.

Paige Holden: [00:34:00] We do have client. Again, this one is also on the front lines of … actually, a healthcare client, front lines of service delivery. And they were trying to determine how doctors and nurses could potentially get into a temporary living environment because they didn’t want to bring potential infection back to their families into their homes. And we were able to do some research for them, and start to understand the climate where their hospitals are to see what we could do. Now, they haven’t gone forward with anything but just the dialogue with them with, “Thank you, XONEX.”

Paige Holden: [00:34:47] Taking a traditional function of relocation, which should be temp living or extended stay, and trying to apply it to a completely different situation, and walk through what the logistics and the costs of that might be. It was a great exercise. If they may still decide to go that way, they haven’t needed to, but just the exercise of walking through that with them was, I think, pretty positive experience for our team. And it’s always good to look at the services you provide and see where else they might be able to help outside of just traditional relo.

Jill Heineck: [00:35:26] I love that story. And I love … Going beyond is really kind of the theme of the moment, especially when people are putting themselves at risk for us. And I have too many stories about being affected by this, and being on the front lines, and not having the support. And knowing that there are companies out there that do that, you feel so much better. And thank you so much.

Paige Holden: [00:35:56] We are always going to try to find creative solutions for our clients. And I’m just grateful that this particular group hasn’t had to do, haven’t had to take those measures because they haven’t been as impacted, which is a really good thing.

Jill Heineck: [00:36:13] That is a great thing. So, what pieces of advice would you impart on our listeners today regarding how you are continually serving, meeting and exceeding your clients’ expectations?

Paige Holden: [00:36:30] Well, I think what I would have always said remains true today and is especially important today is when you are counseling folks that are going through a major life change, which relocation is, patience, kindness, empathy is critical. Taking the time to listen is critical. And having the right counselors on your team who can do that work is so important. And this COVID situation has just highlighted that for me in in such a big way, and I’m sure for other people as well, how important human connection and human reassurances can be.

Paige Holden: [00:37:22] So, I think we’ll always reflect on this time and try to remember the human element. Even if we’re apart from each other, you see more connection happening in some way. I mean, I know I’m doing Zoom calls with folks I haven’t even seen in years, but it’s such a great way to reconnect. So, keeping the connection point on our transferees, making sure we’re always treating them with compassion and empathy, and trying to solve their problems logically and reasonably.

Paige Holden: [00:37:52] And then, for our corporate clients, it’s really just listening, understanding what’s happening in their markets, understanding what’s happening in their personal roles because, again, our client context wear many hats in many cases. And so, being sensitive to the fact that they are stressed, and that they just need accurate information succinctly and quickly, and that we’re here to support them when they ask, and that’s what we’re doing. And that’s always going to be, I think, the recipe for effective customer experience. It’s just being there. It’s listening, and being there, and working as a partnership.

Jill Heineck: [00:38:31] I love that. And it’s absolutely true, I think, on every level of a relocation, but particularly when they are looking to you as their partner, and getting from point A to point B, and needing to know all the things in between. And Paige, I’m so happy that you were able to join us today. I really appreciate it.

Paige Holden: [00:38:53] Thank you.

Jill Heineck: [00:38:53] Hang tight for just a second. I want to thank all of our listeners for for listening today. We’re proud to share the show because these stories will show how there are companies out there who are actually prioritizing the customer experience as a legitimate business strategy. So, no matter what industry they’re actually in, the customer experience should always be at the heart of your business. Thanks so much for joining us. Have a great day.

About Your Host

Jill Heineck is a leading authority on corporate relocations, and is highly sought after for her real estate industry acumen and business insights. As a published author, frequent panelist and keynote speaker, Jill shares her experience and perceptions with people from around the globe.

Jill is a founding partner of Keller Williams Southeast, established in 1999, and the founder and managing partner of Heineck & Co. Her real estate practice specializes in corporate relocations, individual relocations, luxury residential, and commercial properties. Jill’s analytical approach to problem-solving, along with her expert negotiation skills and sophisticated marketing, deliver superior results to her clients. Her winning strategies and tenacious client advocacy have earned her a reputation for excellence among Atlanta’s top producers.

While Jill has received many accolades throughout her career, she is most gratified by the personal testimonials and referrals she receives from her clients. Jill’s unwavering commitment to the customer experience, and her focus on the unique needs of each client, serve as the foundation of her success.

Follow Jill Heineck on LinkedIn.