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How important are agent ratings? With the Internet serving as the life hack for just about everyone, ratings are crucial to your business. It’s not only prospective clients who are Googling you, but also future employers who look four months out as well as current and past clients and your competition.
Samantha DeBianchi moderated this topic in the panel What’s Next For Agent Ratings And Rankings? How To Make Them Work For You. Panelists Jill Biggs of Jill Biggs Group at Coldwell Banker and Coral Gundlach Century 21 agent weighed in on the topic.
Reviews aren’t always a bad thing though — even the negative ones. They let agents know what aspects of their business need to be improved and they keep agents on top of their game. They are also a great way to drum up some business because you will be top-of-mind with current and former clients.
Here are a few tips from Biggs and Gundlach to help you garner those positive reviews:
1. Start early
Ask in the middle of the transaction. Sometimes, if you go through something a little trying, it makes your clients realize your value, and there’s no better time to ask.
2. Ask for 5 stars
When you ask for the review, be clear that you want five out of five stars because sometimes even the customers who love you will only give you four stars. Simply asking puts them in a 5-star mindframe.
3. Make it easy
Here’s a pro-tip from Biggs: Cut and paste the Zillow link into a text, and text it to your clients. They can reply and rate you via text. Make it easy, and they will give you a review.
4. Go after former clients
This might seem like a tall order, but ideally, you are having touchpoints with your clients throughout the year anyway, and that’s a great time to ask for a review.
5. Create a contest
Sometimes asking former clients is a little awkward, especially if it’s been a while, but one way to grease the wheels on getting that review is to make it a contest. Create a raffle — one review equals one entry — and offer a gift card to the winner’s favorite restaurant as a prize.
6. Don’t expect a review from everyone
“You aren’t going to get every single person to review you, so focus on the ones who will,” Gundlach said.
However, if being too busy is the reason that your client can’t seem to get it done, Biggs suggests writing it for them, taking a little gift over for a pop-by (champagne perhaps?) and asking them to review you with the prewritten review.
7. Cherry pick
Especially when you do a lot of business, you need to be careful who you ask for a review — more business means more of a chance to make a mistake or for someone to be unhappy. So carefully choose who you’d like to review you.
“The Internet is scary, so be super careful who you ask for reviews because once they (bad reviews) are there, they are there,” Biggs said.
So what do you do when you get a bad review? Biggs said, cry, call your friends, try to have it removed, drink, and then bury it with good reviews.
And hey, you can use the tips above to do just that.
