Whether the market booms or busts, one thing remains constant: agent attrition. In the last five years, a record number of agents—56%—have left or seriously considered leaving their brokerage. Many brokers consider attrition a cost of doing business. But does it have to be?
To avoid churn, brokers can invest in understanding what agents value. We surveyed 82 SkySlope agents and asked them what they look for when selecting a brokerage, as well as what influences them to leave a brokerage.
Discover what agents value to shrink attrition, increase attraction, and weather market swings in your brokerage.
1. Culture and Technology
When considering what brokerage to join, agents most highly value reputation and culture, followed by the availability of technology and online tools.
While reputation and culture can be decades in the making, all brokerages can take immediate inventory of their tech stack. There’s also a unifying thread: upgrading technology can improve a brokerage’s overall reputation.
When thinking about what technology and online tools to offer, there is a wide range to consider, including:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for lead generation
- Email software for newsletter creation and communication with clients
- Design software for the creation of digital and print marketing
- Transaction management for transaction organization and compliance
- Digital forms for easy form-filling with increased accuracy
- e-signature for document signing
- Automated accounting for commission splits and disbursement
Brokerages can curate their own technology stacks piece by piece or they can adopt technology that packages multiple solutions into one system. The latter can act as a comprehensive digital office that keeps agents technologically plugged in throughout every task, every day.
2. Support
When asked about what additional factors agents value when selecting a brokerage, “support from others” received the largest share of the votes.
Support from others can come in numerous forms, including office administration that provides reception, showing services, and financial management. It can also come in the form of shared workloads. Agents who collaborate on transactions with other brokerage staff see reduced time spent on in-office tasks. This can increase time for revenue-generating activities, maximizing agents’ overall satisfaction.
3. Transparent Commissions
Once agents are established at a brokerage, commission structure and fees are ranked as the most valued assets by agents. Agents and brokers have a unique relationship. Agents are essentially freelance workers but pay fees in return for resources. As a result, agents highly value the ability to see where their commissions and dues are being allocated by a brokerage.
Adopting an accounting and commission disbursement solution that embeds into a larger transaction management ecosystem is one way to provide increased transparency for agents. When data lives in one singular system, it reduces the likelihood of data being lost or input incorrectly.
SkySlope Books nests within our transaction management solution transfering transaction data directly into Books’s accounting software, increasing transparency and decreasing errors. Books is also outfitted with customizable commission profiles that can automate payments for even the most complicated of commission structures.
4. A Centralized Work Hub
In 2023, most agents’ day-to-day is digitized, but that doesn’t necessarily mean streamlined. Many brokerages piece together a variety of third-party software to create a work suite. For agents, this means they must repeatedly log in and out of different applications to complete their job. Brokerages can remedy this patchwork by integrating all-in-one solutions that seamlessly transfer data from one part of a transaction to another.
SkySlope is an all-in-one solution that allows agents to manage virtually every aspect of their workday in one place. From submitting documents for audit to filling forms to getting paid, SkySlope is a singular ecosystem that manages every life stage of a transaction. MLS integrations and data syncs throughout the platform also auto-fill matching data fields, saving agents significant time.
The bottom line: learn and take action
Reducing churn, especially when it comes to top-performing agents, improves a brokerage’s cost efficiencies, strengthening their bottom line. Like employees in any profession, when agents feel heard and valued, they’re more engaged with their work, resulting in a more durable and sustainable brokerage.
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