Editor’s note: This is the last of a three-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
What do video and managing your reputation have to do with each other? In addition to being two of the hottest trends in the real estate industry, they were both featured recently at Real Estate Connect San Francisco’s Start-Up Alley.
Are you monitoring your online reputation? Are you regularly using video in your real estate business? If you want to stay ahead of the competition, now is the time to capitalize on these two highly important trends.
RealSatisfied.com
Like it or not, agent review systems are here to stay. The best way to capitalize on this trend is to be proactive in surfacing issues in your customer service. If you fail to monitor client issues, your clients may become so angry that they will post their discontent online.
Using a post-closing survey is a great way to prevent this from happening to you. In fact, the research on consumer satisfaction has repeatedly shown that companies and/or agents who conduct post-closing customer service surveys consistently receive customer satisfaction scores in the 92 to 97 percent range.
The challenge for most agents and brokerages is having the time to create the surveys. That’s where RealSatisfied comes in. For as little as $9.95 per month for individual agents or $50 per month for an office or team, RealSatisfied allows your clients to provide feedback quickly and easily. Moreover, RealSatisfied actually helps you to collect testimonials and recommendations as well.
The “escalation” feature is one of the most critical components of RealSatisfied: “Escalations are requests by customers to be contacted by management about the service they received.” These requests can be positive or negative.
In the case where the client is a raving fan, that’s a great time to ask for a testimonial. When there is an issue, however, the key question to ask is, “What can I do to fix the problem?” Most people want to know that their concerns are heard and that you are doing everything in your power to help to resolve the problem. This simple step is one of the best ways to make sure that the bulk of your online reviews are positive.
If you do receive a negative comment, you can counteract it by posting a series of six to eight video testimonials over a four- to eight-week period of time. Since Google ranks video highly in its search results, this will serve to push the negative reviews off the top of the first page of search results.
Videos made easy
Research by the National Association of Realtors shows that 73 percent of sellers would prefer to work with an agent who uses video. Yet only about 1 percent of all agents are currently using video. Agents have been slow to adopt video because they feel it’s too complicated. Two video tools debuting at Start-Up Alley make using video in your business super simple.
Blazing Tours is a free app that turns your smartphone into an easy-to-use video production tool. The Blazing Tours storyboards help you to lay out your video and then guide you through every aspect of shooting the video: “The app will string your videos together to make one seamless, high-quality professional tour.”
The app also allows you to edit in still images, slides, crop or split the video, as well as doing voice-overs or enhancing the video with music. Once you complete the video, you can upload it to YouTube, Facebook or any of the other social networks to which you belong.
Videolicious is another new entry into this field that also allows you to construct videos quickly and easily using your cell phone. Its fee for the basic professional package is only $5 per month. You can use your smartphone, tablet or desktop to make Videolicious videos. All you have to do is “choose your shots and Videolicious does the rest — giving you professional-quality video in seconds without the work.” Videolicious is so easy to use that it has attracted nearly 1 million users.
Blazing Tours and Videolicious can be powerful tools for creating video testimonials. Since you probably carry your cell phone everywhere, when a client is happy with your services, ask for a video testimonial. Shoot and edit the video right on the spot, post it to your Facebook page, and send the link to your clients so that they can post it to their social networks as well.
Another way to use these powerful tools is to shoot videos about the lifestyle in the market areas where you work. Take pictures of your favorite local hangouts and then combine these with interviews from local business owners about what they love about the area. Each of these tools makes combining your still shots, video and voice-over super-simple.
If you want stay way ahead of the competition while also managing your exposure to negative posts online, using video and post-closing customer service surveys are two of the most powerful ways to achieve this important goal.
