The Age of the Internet Review
As important as it is for ourselves to create content for prospective clients and those looking for real estate information on the internet it is just as important to get them to write and create content for us.
Zillow, Active Rain, and Yelp all push the fact that having a testimonial/review on your page will be beneficial to business. This isn't a hard fact to agree with. Are you more likely to go with a Real Estate agent, restaurant, or ice cream shop that has a 1-star review, a 5-star review, or no reviews at all? The 1-Star is obviously not going to be your first choice. The person/place that has no reviews seems kind of fishy (do they get customers? are they not utilizing the internet in this day and age?). Most every realtor thinks that they are the best suited to service you - but that's from their own perspective - getting a client's perspective is more reassuring for any internet-home-searcher. We need to make ourselves visible and active on these websites such as Yelp, Zillow, and LinkedIn so that we can at the very least have the ability to be reviewed.
My Question to Active Rainers
We now know that we need the reviews but how do we go about getting them? What's the correct, polite way to go about receiving these reviews? Do you leave it all up to the client to do what they choose? If they felt like you did a good enough service to warrant a review they'll give you one. Is that your attitude? What if the client doesn't know about services such as LinkedIn and Yelp? Are you a straightforward type of person and just ask them to give you a review as soon as their home is sold? "Thanks for doing business with me and now if you can just go to this website when you get access to internet in your new home and do a review of me I'd really appreciate it!" I know that Zillow offers an e-mail form in which all you have to do is type in the clients e-mail address and it'll send a request for a review. Do most of us have client's e-mails or are we talking to them by phone? Should we give them a call and ask them? Is it more personal and better suited for the situation? So once again, the main question is - How do you go about getting your reviews?
I personally have had several great notes/cards/gifts from clients since the beginning of my career. Since my awareness of the needs of internet reviews I've had 1 review done for Zillow and that was done through typing in the clients e-mail address on the Zillow E-mail form. I was very appreciative and made sure to call the client after I received the review.
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