In real estate, good customer relations and service feedback help to show the credibility of the real estate agent. Reviews are crucial when building a reputation that can help attract clients. It is vital for real estate agents to maintain a good customer relationships because it increases their efficiency.
The key to having long-term success in real estate is having a good customer-working relationship. As a real estate agent, having a good customer relationship helps the customers feel safe and secure with the brand. A brand that creates a good connection based on communication will have a reasonable repeat purchase rate.
Beyond influencing customers to come back and work with an agent again over rivals, is that a satisfied customer can recommend their services to others and act as a valuable advocate. Going so far as to help the agent’s online reputation by detailing their experience through a review or testimonial, often gladly, at the agent’s request.
Read on to know more about why earning service feedback and reviews build up the brand’s reputation.
Building Trust in Real Estate
Success in real estate is quite dependent on building trust with their clients. Providing services is easier for clients with a good trust base because they will trust the process. Trust can make a client refer an agent to friends and family. When there is doubt in the client’s mind, purchasing real estate services becomes difficult.
Building trust is a vital element in making a real estate business grow. When there is trust between the customers and realtors, the customers will trust that you will listen to them and vice versa. There is mostly a smooth success when the two parties working together trust one another. Being honest in a real estate business makes the agent remarkably reliable and confident.
Trust is vital when buying and selling real estate because agents often help during negotiation. Agents help the clients find available listings which the clients may not be able to find via their methods.
The following are some of the ways that buyers and sellers find their realtors:
- Referrals from friends and family.
- Do some research on potential candidates.
- Have a meeting and conduct an interview.
- Check their references.
- Trust your gut.
- Look and read the contract.
These are some of the factors that convince a client to choose a specific realtor over another:
- How well the realtor understands the way the current market is.
- The realtor should have a good track record and customer reviews.
- How good are the realtor’s communications skills are.
- The realtor’s reputation within the industry.
- A realtor must treat their client with respect.
- The realtor should have a lot of experience in the field.
Earning Positive Feedback and Reviews
Feedback and reviews are crucial in real estate because they serve as social proof for the business. What homebuyers and property owners want to see in a real estate associate they bring in to help make or buy or sell is reliability, first and foremost, and they often determine their level of reliability by their past property deal, essentially, their track record and the details of those deals.
Clients will often search for a broker along with a property management company they’re associated with and tend to be extremely thorough, taking a “the more information the better” approach. Ideally, they hope to find enough information to assure themselves that they have a trustworthy and reputable realtor before they even agree to meet them in person.
For that reason, real estate agents should be aware of any and all testimonials and records of their past dealings that are online and that potential clients might see. Which should be an easy enough effort to make by looking up the name of the real estate office and/or agent. If you don’t yet have a presence online, consider creating a profile on certain sites.
If you do find records and reviews and it’s possible to restructure the webpage that they’re on or request changes by the site administrators, it’s worthwhile to make a request to put more positive information front and center, rather than anything that’s isn’t worth the placement – not unlike a retail store’s display windows, the items that it would want traffic walking by to see as an appeal to get them through the door.
There are three categories of review sites that are great for realtors. They are:
Mainstream Sites
Some of the top popular sites for business reviews are Yelp, Google, and Facebook. Google has a high volume of searches, making it one of the most critical tools to leverage for earning reviews. Although mainstream sites provide a significant amount of exposure, remember that it goes both ways when it comes to that level of publicity.
Negative reviews linked to property management companies can deter potential customers and even solidify a certain image or perception if those reviews are more visible than other ones. To flip the benefit of a mainstream platform or search engine back to your favor, directly address negative reviews in a courteous and professional manner.
Acknowledge the client or reviewer’s opinion and concerns, and also offer to make things right. If you’re able to communicate with the reviewer and resolve their issues, follow up on the original review they made with an update that you had addressed their concerns. It’s also recommended to communicate a willingness of revisiting an issue if the client or customer still has any.
Industry-Specific Review Sites
There are niche sites like Trulia, Zillow, and RateMyAgent for industry-specific reviews. Creating a profile on any site can help agents with their listings and reviews. It’s also a helpful medium for you to respond publicly to reviews about the business.
These industry sites have progressed to offer new features many brokers and other real estate reps might not be aware of. In an effort to likely expand their services and capability of their platforms to remain competitive and utilize new technologies like automated text scripts and triggering lead follow-up when website users express interest in a certain property.
Whether they already have a broker working with them, are looking to get in touch with the one assigned to the listing, or need one to work with. These sites are angling themselves to appeal to not only home buyers and sellers, but also make the process easier on the property management side.
First-Party Reviews on the Real Estate Agent’s Websites
Potential clients often go through the business websites and pages to research more about the agents. They frequently review the reviews and testimonials on these pages before making final decisions. Any first-party review on an agent’s page or business site has a good SEO impact.
The following are some of the most effective ways realtors can receive reviews from their clients:
- Provide excellent service by keeping a positive approach when working with them.
- Manage your reputation on all platforms.
- Ask the clients to leave an honest review about your service in a respectful way.
- Offer an incentive when there are not enough responses for the reviews.
- Potential clients know that no one is perfect; hence, always respond to bad reviews.
An excellent positive review helps boost the agent’s reputation, thus inviting more customers with ease in the future. When meeting with clients to finalize things, make them feel comfortable by serving them beverages in porcelain mugs. Using a porcelain mug is a better option than plastic cups because it is homier. This act of service makes the clients feel appreciated and have a memorable experience.
A Foundation of Trust
Trust building in real estate is vital to having a successful business. Clients who trust a realtor tend to refer the realtor to their family and friends. Agents more open and sincere with their clients tend to have more successful sales that they can close on and that, in turn, lead to more commissions. It also saves a significant amount of time and money on the agent’s side, when it comes to advertising and promotional spending. A happy client is the best form of marketing there is and particularly in the real estate business.
Most potential clients often research to know more about the realtor. They don’t just want someone to only take care of the paperwork, but someone they can count on, that’s in their corner when negotiating deals. They want the assurance that their agent is looking out for their best interests and has the experience and knowledge to advise them according to their wants. Not only to simply deliver on them but to know whether they’re realistic and require adjustment according to the market and their personal circumstances.
With that in mind, it’s vital to have good reviews that can serve as evidence of positive experiences by those you’ve worked with in the past. Having reviews also makes the realtor look more trustworthy and legitimate, as there are real case studies portrayed through their past clientele, regardless if whether they had anything to say about their personal experience with an agent, having them as a number adds up to a high count of customers still looks better than nothing to go on at all.