Monday, May 17, 2010

Things They Should Invent: non-rude way for businesses to tell customers that they're not quite the target audience

Buying a condo is way too hard and stressful to do myself, and everyone advises me that what I really need is a good real estate agent.

(Which always leads to the following exchange:

Me: So how do I find a good real estate agent?
Them: Ask around!
Me: Um, that's kind of what I'm doing right now?)

I'm told a good real estate agent can take all your preferences and specifications and keep an eye open for places that are a good fit, which does sound like exactly what I need.

However, I know that real estate agents get paid on commission. I know that my budget is very small (in Toronto real estate terms) and I have quite a lot of preferences and specifications and am generally very needy. I do love where I'm renting now and don't want to sacrifice even one bit of quality of life in finding a condo. I do understand that this makes me quite a lot of work for very little return, but I don't want to sacrifice on something as important as housing.

So my concern in finding a real estate agent would be finding someone who is actually willing to and interested in finding me something that meets all my silly little needs, holding my hand, and tending to my neuroses. I don't want to be stuck with someone who is rolling their eyes whenever I show up on call display or who pressures me to lower my standards just to save themselves time. And I'm quite sure they don't want to be stuck with me.

What we need is a standard, non-rude, non-judgemental, purely informative way for businesses to inform customers that they don't think they're a good fit. This would need to be done in a way that isn't detrimental to the customer continuing to receive that product or service from that business (in case they can't find something better). You can't really do this in real life because you'd be accused of discrimination or, at the very least, poor customer service. But, as a customer, I'd really like to know when I'm not wanted. And I'm sure you can think of one or two cases where you wouldn't mind being able to do this to your own customers.

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