Update Your Online Profiles.
If you do a quick Google search for yourself, your Zillow, Trulia and Homes.com agent profiles will often come up on the first page of results. Your profile photo and a link to your personal profile are also found next to your own personal listings on all of these sites and they are all heavy traffic sites. This is a great time of the year to take some time to review and update these profiles as well as any other online profiles that you may have appearing in your Google search results.
Customer Reviews and Recommendations.
Zillow, Trulia and Homes.com all also have the ability to display customer reviews. Encourage your clients to write reviews about your services on these sites. These reviews expand your profiles and increase your chances of having new customers contact you directly. I received a call recently from an agent that told me that new customers were contacting her directly and telling her that they had found her online and that she had great reviews. The agent wanted to know where they were finding these great reviews. I did a quick Google search for the agent’s name and her Zillow profile came up within the first 5 or 6 results. Her Zillow profile had 5 excellent, 5 star reviews all with great customer comments.
“I received a call recently from an agent that told me that new customers were contacting her directly and telling her that they had found her online and that she had great reviews.”
Online reviews work, they demonstrate your expertise, help to build trust and give your potential new clients a great reason to seek you out and to contact you directly for your services.
What happens if I get a bad review?
If a bad review get’s posted to one of your profiles, your first reaction will probably be to just delete it. Depending on the site that the review has been listed on you may or may not be able to delete it. You can attempt to delete it and if you can not, the best thing that you can do is to post a comment defending yourself. If the client posted something that is not true, or just their side of the story then post the truth or your side of the story right below their comment. It shows that you’re not hiding from customer feedback and that you care about your personal reputation.
“It’s a lot easier to avoid a negative online comment altogether than it is to remove one once it has already been posted.”
It’s also very important to realize that the internet gives the average consumer multiple ways to post comments about negative experiences that they’ve had with products or services so be very careful how you conduct yourself in business every day. Every single interaction that you have with a current or potential customer matters, whether it’s as long and complex as a full real estate transaction or as quick and simple as a request for more information on a property. Handle each and every interaction with white gloves. Always conduct yourself in a courteous, professional and respectful way regardless of who you’re talking to. Remember that as a general rule, “It’s a lot easier to avoid a negative online comment altogether then it is to remove one once it has already been posted”.
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