14 Tips for Boosting Online ReviewsDaniel Dobbs2023-05-25T12:03:02-07:00
To be entirely successful, agents & MLOs, need to have an online presence.
With social distancing, stay-at-home orders, self-quarantining; agents and MLOs, need to have an online presence.
Reviews are helpful and can be the diff between succeeding vs. NOT!
Below is the best (by far) post I could find to help guide you.
I will be denoting with a label of “Notes” in red where I think an additional “perspective is needed” for the SoCal market!
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YouTube – Straight Talk Lending – Daniel Dobbs
Enjoy the post! It’s a little long, but every bullet point contains valuable info!
Jay Thompson is a former brokerage owner.
The simple fact is, most agents struggle with securing more reviews.
Whether you love reviews or think they’re a waste of time and energy, you can’t ignore the fact that research shows that 91% of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84% trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
If potential clients can’t find a review for you, they’re quite likely to move on to someone who does business like it’s 2020, not 1985.
Here’s how to boost your business through online reviews.
Be Upfront
1. Ask for Reviews
Very few people will write a real estate agent review on their own. You have to ask them to do it.
A word of caution for this and every other tip that follows:
Understand the rules and terms of use of your chosen review platform.
Don’t just scroll through those terms of use pages — actually read and
comprehend them.
Yelp, for example, doesn’t allow solicitation of reviews.
2. Start talking about reviews from Day 1
Don’t make closing time the first time you mention reviews: Let people know you’ll be requesting a review, and then bring them up early when meeting a client or potential client.
Note: I wouldn’t be quite so eager!
Agents and MLOs have all had clients who would “complain if we “hung ’em” with a new rope (lol).
Before you start hammering a client for reviews, check Yelp, Google, etc. to see if they have written other reviews.
If you can’t say something positive, “don’t say anything at all.”
I’ve written 100+ reviews on Google and a few on Yelp (I have no life obviously), and only 2 are bad, and both had to “really work for those.”
Your client may also be this way. Or they may be the EXACT opposite!
One bad review will cancel out ten good ones!
Most clients won’t write anything despite your best efforts. Some can’t wait to tarnish others; it’s a power trip!
And if you are too eager to have them review you – they will use it as leverage during the transaction and punish you when it’s all over, and they don’t need you anymore to COE.
Please don’t wait until the end of the transaction but instead, wait until you know they COMPLETELY satisfied before pushing for the review.
3. Drop a Hint
In your day-to-day dealings with a client. They will often say things like, “Wow, thanks for pointing that out, such a super-useful tip!”
This presents you with an excellent opportunity to say, “That would be a perfect statement to put in a review, dropping those hints helps reinforce the importance of reviews.
Note: Write down their quotes and compliments.
Many clients don’t feel comfortable writing reviews and will defer to you.
Use their notable quotes and compliments to compile a review, send it to your client for their review, and ask them to post it whatever is appropriate.
4. Don’t Wait Until Closing
Many agents say they wait until closing to ask for a review, as that’s when the clients are happiest. True, but it’s also when they are the busiest.
Closing is a stressful time; ask before then. Come the closing day, mention it again, and then wait until a couple of weeks after closing to ask again.
5. Send a Video Email
It’s easy to ignore an email, even if it’s personalized. It’s much harder to ignore your smiling face in a short video requesting a review.
6. Make a Personal Call
It’s even harder to ignore a personal phone call. It takes a little more effort, but even if you don’t get the review, you’ve made contact with a past client — and that’s never a bad idea.
Make Getting Reviews a Regular Habit
7. Make reviews part of your daily business
Real estate agents who have the most success getting reviews consider them integral to their business marketing.
They mention reviews (and the process for writing them) to every client, throughout their buying or selling experience.
8. Incorporate ‘the ask’ into your process
It never ceases to amaze me how often I hear a real estate agent say, “Oh, I always forget to ask for reviews.”
Enter “reviews” as a calendar reminder, & add it to your buyer/seller checklists.
9. Don’t rely only on closed transactions to get a review
Many agents seem to feel that the only people they should ask for reviews are clients who closed a transaction with them. Not so.
Note: As a MLO, many times, I’m “the bad” guy because I’m the one that delivers the bad news the can’t qualify.
There’s no reason you can’t get a great review from a buyer who didn’t close the transaction.
As an agent, that’s not the case. If you’ve given solid advice, don’t hesitate to ask for a review of the work you’ve done.
10. Be persistent, but Not Annoying
People tend to need reminding more than once to write a review.
It’s hard to keep bugging people to do it because you don’t want to come across as a whiny, pushy salesperson.
11. Personalize the language in the standard review invitation
Most review systems use canned language in their review requests. Delete it, and write a personal message instead.
Remind clients of what you did and how critical reviews are to your real estate business.
Make it EZ to Review You
12. Explain the importance of agent reviews in your business
Asking for a review is a very “me” thing. But that’s what you have to do.
Explaining why you’d like an honest review helps people understand the importance of them.
Here’s a simple script:”Reviews are an integral part of my business.
You saw my reviews, and they helped you decide to hire me.
I’d appreciate it greatly if you would help others do the same by leaving me an honest review.”
What Not to Do
13. Don’t Expect a Review from Everyone
Some people won’t write them. Some will repeatedly promise that they will, but it never happens. Accept the fact that you can’t win them all.
14. Do Not EVER buy Reviews
There are many websites out there that, for a fee, will put reviews on all the popular review platforms.
Don’t; Google will flag you and cancel ALL your reviews!
The last thing you want to do is build up your reviews, only to have them all yanked off the site that you can no longer access.
