Past-client touchpoints: a maintenance checklist closing gift and review requests

After closing, keep a small, repeatable set of touchpoints: hand over a home maintenance checklist with your name on it as a closing gift, ask for honest feedback at closing, about 30 days later and about a year later, and share reviews you have permission to use on a simple posting schedule. Ask without offering anything in return and without suggesting a good review is owed, send nothing further to anyone who has replied or said no, and check your brokerage, platform and consent rules before you send.

Most agents get a closing and then go quiet, because there is no obvious next step. A short list of touchpoints fixes that: a small gift at the table, a review request at three moments, and a light, steady presence after that. None of it needs to be elaborate. It only needs to be repeatable.

Touchpoint 1: a closing gift that stays on the fridge

The home maintenance checklist is a printable list of monthly, spring and summer, fall and winter, and once-a-year jobs. Add the homeowner’s name, the property and your contact details, untick anything that does not apply, and add local items such as snow, wildfire or well and septic as extra lines. Print it, or save a PDF or PNG to email with a closing-day note.

Two cautions. It is a general guide, not professional advice, so point repair and safety questions to a licensed contractor or inspector. And check your brokerage’s rules on closing gifts before you hand it out. If you also gave the buyer the closing day checklist, the two make a matching pair.

Touchpoint 2: three moments to ask for a review

The review request templates are fill-in-the-blank emails and texts for three moments:

Moment	Why then
At closing	The experience is fresh. Thank them first, then ask once, simply.
About 30 days later	They have settled in and can say how the process turned out.
About a year later	An anniversary check-in. Ask how they are, and only if you have not asked before, whether they would share their experience.

Do not send the next message to anyone who has already replied, or who has said no or asked you not to contact them.

Ask honestly, with no incentives

The wording should invite honest feedback and say any answer is welcome. Do not offer gifts, discounts or other rewards for a review, do not suggest the client owes you a good one, and do not ask only the clients you expect to be happy. Platform and board rules on this differ, and whether you may email or text a past client at all depends on what they agreed to. The templates are drafts; they cannot tell you what is allowed in your situation.

Touchpoint 3: a light presence after that

Reviews you have permission to share, a note on the anniversary of the closing, a seasonal reminder from the maintenance list: these fit a simple schedule. The content calendar generator builds a 30-day plan from how often you post, with a caption prompt for each day, so a past-client post slot is planned, not remembered at the last minute. Keep the wording fair-housing-safe, and describe the service, not the type of client. For ideas on keeping the habit going, see how to stay consistent with real estate video.

A simple routine

1. At the closing table: the maintenance checklist, and the first review request.
2. 30 days later: the second request, with a note on how the move went.
3. One year later: the anniversary check-in.
4. Throughout: a planned post or two each month that keeps your name in front of the people who already know you.

Keep a note of who has replied or opted out so nobody gets a request twice.

Common questions