Reputation management is key to a real estate agent’s success

Buying a home is an emotional, exciting and downright terrifying process. Picking the right real estate agent is the most important part in ensuring an enjoyable home search and subsequent smooth transition from one home to another. Personal referrals are great for those who are relocating within their same city, but what about the family who is moving to a new area where they know no one; the newlyweds who had a bad experience with their last agent; or the business owner whose favorite agent retired? How do they decide who the best real estate agent is for their needs?

They check online reviews.

Here are three reasons why you as a real estate agent should care about your online reviews:

1. Great reviews establish trust and credibility.

Your potential clients feel confident in their decision to choose you as their agent after reading how happy your previous clients were with you. Reviews offer valuable information from your previous buyers and sellers, like how well you handled their contracts and how you helped families searching for a home become familiar with new areas.

2. Great reviews improve your SEO.

As positive reviews increase, your online reputation will organically improve and enhance your Google search results, ultimately driving more clients to pick up their phones and call you or your real estate company. Work toward gaining positive reviews on a variety of different real estate agent review websites such as Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia and your own real estate Facebook page.

3. Great reviews outperform no reviews or negative reviews.

Since real estate is a highly competitive industry and there are so many agents to choose from, you can’t afford to lose clients simply because another agent had more positive reviews. Reviews play a big part in a potential client’s decision-making process, so be sure you’re reaching out to your current clients for their feedback on review websites.

Reputation management software helps agents gain more positive reviews by sending an email or text message to their clients after closing requesting feedback about their home buying or selling experiences. Sign up for a free demonstration to see how the ReviewMaxer software works.

Photo credit: 123RF Stock Photo

Written by: Rebecca McClure

3 reasons why positive reviews are key to engaging new customers

Before you set foot into a salon or spa and trust a stranger to make changes to your physical appearance, you’ve most likely gone through a long list of referrals and reviews. The salon and beauty industry flourishes through positive reviews based on customers’ experiences. Often, the first step people take when they are interested in trying a new salon or product is to search the web for online reviews, testimonials and even YouTube videos.

It’s increasingly easy for brands to generate awareness about their services through influencer marketing on social media. One way is through posting with hashtags that result in a trending conversation. Customers who had a disappointing experience at a salon are more likely to share their opinions over those who had great experiences. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial for companies in the beauty industry to generate more positive reviews in order to attract new customers.

Here are three benefits to encouraging your salon and spa customers to leave reviews about their experiences.

1. Receive free online advertising. 

Teaming up with social media influencers who push a product or service they truly believe in will promote your salon or product and expand your brand awareness as a whole. People who come across an influencer’s positive review are more aware of what your company sells and what you have to offer. When positive reviews outweigh the negative ones, more people are willing to choose your company.

2. Form a closer connection with the customer. 

When you take into consideration the experiences your customers have, it provides an opportunity to connect with more prospective customers. You should use customer feedback to tailor your services or products to better fit your audience. This sends the message to your customers that you are paying attention to your reviews. Engaging with customers who leave positive reviews as well as negative ones shows customers their experiences are crucial to your company’s success. You might not be able to respond to everyone, but a simple thank you or like goes a long way. When responding to reviews, it’s important to personalize your message. Often, the consumer will feel connected to the brand and is more likely to promote your business.

3. Establish trust and credibility. 

Your potential clients feel confident in their decision to use your service or product when they read how happy your previous clients were with you. Reviews offer valuable information from your previous customers, like how well their experiences were or how a new product is worth the money. Creating consistently good products or services will ensure your credibility and trust in your current and potential clients.

ReviewMaxer makes it easier to respond quickly to negative reviews and engage with the customers who left positive ones, ultimately improving your overall online reputation and brand awareness. Having the ability to engage with customers who leave reviews with real-time alerts will help establish a closer connection.

Watch this free demonstration to see how ReviewMaxer software works or Buy Now.

Photo credit: Pablo

Written by: Amanda Murguido

3 reasons to strive for great reviews

Companies in the hospitality industry, including hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, AirbNb and VRBO, measure their overall performance based largely on customer reviews. Reviews dictate an establishment’s four- or five-star rating, which then engages a targeted group of customers. Hotels measure the average occupancy rate based on time of year, revenue per available room and overall guest experience.

Guests may leave a review on any part of their experience, which can reflect positively or negatively on your venue – from booking to room availability, cleanliness and more. It’s important to use ratings and reviews as a marketing tool when you are trying to generate new leads and increase the visibility of your business. Customers search through star ratings and previous customer reviews before making a reservation.

Here are three reasons why it’s important to have a positive online reputation in the hospitality industry:

1. Your customers know they come first.

Customers’ experiences are the foundation of your business, so you want to provide the most comfortable stay. When customers leave positive reviews, they encourage potential vacationers to stay at your establishment to essentially enjoy the same experience they had. When potential guests see that you respond to reviews, they see that you are engaged and that you care.

2. You create ultimate SEO.

Established hotels that maintain their online reputations and have overall high ratings fare better in online searches. If you have a larger number of positive reviews, Google will rank your company higher, which increases your visibility.

3. Positive reviews create an impression of your business as a brand.

The overall rating of a stay at your location is crucial for marketing purposes. Customers want to stay at a venue whose ratings fall within the four- to five-star range. When the majority of your reviews are positive, it creates a good first impression. Prospective customers also use reviews to check off amenities and services that interest them.

Customers will only visit your hotel if your online reputation meets their standards. It’s time-consuming and arduous to manage your online reputation on the numerous review websites. ReviewMaxer is fast and affordable, easy-to-use software that manages your company’s online reviews and reputation. Use ReviewMaxer to promote your positive reviews and interact with your customers to resolve negative reviews.

Watch this free demonstration video to see how ReviewMaxer software works and how it will improve your online reputation.

Photo credit: Pablo

Written by: Amanda Murguido

The importance of positive reviews and how they drive your company

You own a successful company. Your customers tell you they enjoy working with your company and that they would recommend you to their network. However, you’re not getting the traction you desire from your website. Have you considered your online review presence? What about your SEO presence? Is your company listed on the first page of online search results? Is your online review presence negative or minimal? These factors may be negatively impacting your business, and SEO might be one of your biggest areas for improvement in driving business.

According to a consumer review survey by SEO research company BrightLocal, 85 percent of consumers read online reviews and 90 percent claim that positive reviews influence their buying decisions. Online reviews matter, and in a world of web searching – especially for local companies – it can make a business stand out amongst its competitors.

Here are two ways online reviews improve your SEO.

1. Reviews improve trustworthiness.

The more online reviews you have and the better representation you have online, the more likely customers will consider doing business with your company. It’s the power of social proof. People want reassurance that they are indeed making the best decision for their money. The more confidence you give prospects, the better chance they will choose you. A strong presence of online reviews influences your rankings in SEO.

2. New reviews produce traffic.

Search engines want to see that your website is making new content, whether that’s through new landing pages, blog posts or customer reviews. They want to see that reviews are frequently added. A search on tripadvisor.com for best hotels in your area usually gives you the most recent and top-rated review for a specific hotel. The newer the positive review, the better it makes your customer feel about the recent activity of your business. This leads to your website getting more clicks, which in turn influences the consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Online reviews are important to the growth of your company and help generate a better return on SEO. ReviewMaxer is an online review management software application that helps companies manage customer reviews. ReviewMaxer monitors and collects your online reviews. Sign up today for a free demo or visit the ReviewMaxer blog for more tips.

Photo credit: Pablo

Written by: Justin Hamilton

How to improve your brand and increase engagement

There's a very good reason that companies include testimonial pages on their websites. Did you know that research from YouGov has shown that 78 percent of Americans look at reviews before making a purchase, and 88 percent find reviews about as trustworthy as personal recommendations from their inner circle of friends and family? Those online reviews are powerful …which is why it's too bad that more businesses don't know how to use them properly.

The testimonial page is just one tool that should be in your online review toolbox. Let's talk about how to manage a broader, more effective review strategy by tapping into the social market.

Your industry and your reviews

While social channels are a popular breeding ground for reviews, it's a good idea to start by examining which channels you should focus on. Begin by asking yourself: Where do my potential customers go for reviews? Which channels will have the most impact when it comes to posting reviews? Relevancy is different for everyone, but here are a few points to keep in mind:

• Yelp is a powerful retail/restaurant review tool, but interest is starting to fade due to overuse and concerns about spamming, poor reviews, etc. For now, Yelp is still necessary for many industries, but expect it to be supplanted in coming years.
• Google business profiles and Facebook are still requirements for nearly every industry. These are high-profile channels that directly impact both customers and your SEO. When in doubt, focus efforts here because these channels tend to have the most impact, even in B2B fields.
• Be specific. Many industries have specific sites to garner reviews – think of Zagat for restaurants or Vitals for health care. Search for review sites unique to your industry and target them.
• Use metrics. Examine your traffic: Where does it come from? What ads have the best conversion rates? This should point to social sites where you need to focus efforts.

A call to action for reviews

Once you know which social media channels you need to pursue – what’s next? A good review strategy requires effective calls to action. There are several places to put these calls to action. A solution that works for many companies is creating a landing page specifically for reviews, using simple forms that allow customers to quickly file a review. After a transaction, emails and links can point customers toward these landing pages with a simple request for a positive review about their experiences. Brick-and-mortar transactions can do the same with a little message on the receipt or an add-on to receipt emails.

Another powerful tool, especially for targeting specific networks, is a set of share buttons to allow customers to instantly share their reviews or visit the business profile where they can provide star reviews and messages for a particular social media site.

You should also consider incentives, especially when it comes to larger clients. Offering deals and discounts in exchange for reviews is common in many business circles; so don't feel bad about including rewards.

Using reviews when you have them

Positive reviews are starting to roll in thanks to your well-placed calls to action. Now, what do you do with them? It's smart to separate them into four different categories:

1. Testimonials to share through website and email.

These are longer, more detailed positive reviews that are great for sharing in the right formats.

2. Short reviews to share on social media.

These reviews are shorter and have excellent blurbs, ideal for posting on social media with a link to the review and a note about happy customers.

3. Reviews that deserve a response.

These are reviews that raise important questions or comments that you should answer.

4. Reviews you can ignore.

These reviews are far from useless and they contribute to overall review scores, but there's nothing much you can do with them, so don't waste energy on them.

Creating conversation

Finally, let's talk a little about poor reviews. Studies have shown that 4 out of 5 consumers back off from purchase decisions if they run across a negative online review. Here's what to do in response: answer poor reviews when possible. It doesn't matter if the review is unfair or doesn't make sense, post a reply, comment or apology. You aren't doing this for the poor review itself (although any toxic customer that you can convert is a win); you are doing this for new customers who are checking out reviews. If they see you are explaining or at least answering the negative reviews, they will be much less likely to let those reviews affect them!

Obviously, a successful review strategy requires a significant investment of time and labor (and it's probably not something you want to leave to interns). If you currently don't have the time to spare, consider using review management software to manage customer feedback and encourage positive customer reviews. ReviewMaxer is an affordable way to effectively manage your company’s reviews and online reputation – and it is extremely easy to use. Sign up for a free demo to see how this cloud-based software can save you time and promote your company online.

Photo credit: 123RF Stock Photo

Written by: Nick Rojas

The first steps you should take to begin generating reviews for your company

The legal field poses unique challenges when it comes to obtaining online reviews. The sensitive and personal nature of a law firm’s work makes it more difficult to get clients to speak out about their experiences. But if you look at generating reviews for your firm as both a numbers game and a long-term proposition – you’ll see that it’s more than worth the effort.

The value of a single review is enormous. Consider the conversion increase that even a single review provides your firm: A recent Bazaarvoice study showed that one positive online review could boost conversion by 10 percent. Every subsequent review boosts that rate even more.

With a long-term review acquisition strategy, it’s important to have patience and make sure you’re putting in a sound and consistent effort to gather reviews from your clients. Here’s how to get started.

1. Find your major review-site listings across the web.

Once you’ve created your account and logged into your dashboard, automatically search and upload links for your business’s existing listings across the most important major review sites by clicking the Connect a Location button in Dashboard > Funnel > Links > Review Profile.

Although industry-specific sites play a huge role for law firms, your major review-site listings (on sites like Google+ and Facebook) do have a large impact on your company’s visibility and reputation on the internet. Even if you choose to hide these major review-site links on your landing page, it’s valuable to keep them in your list for monitoring.

2. Find your industry-specific review-site listings across the web.

Industry-specific review sites are particularly important in the legal field and you shouldn’t overlook them. Consider creating or seeking out existing listings on the following review sites (we integrate with all of the sites mentioned):

• Avvo (the Yelp of law).
• Lawyers.com.
• Martindale.com.

As always, if there’s a review site you’d like to see integrated into our platform, feel free to get in touch.

3. Determine which of the review sites are most important to your goals.

Take a moment to inventory and assess your listings across these major and minor sites to determine which links you’d like to display and highlight for your visitors. Highlight your top priority site by dragging its link into the blue box in Dashboard > Funnel > Links > Your Review Site Links.

4. Ask clients directly for feedback.

As a law firm, you have the advantage of establishing strong, sustained, face-to-face relationships with your clients. This is why asking your satisfied clients to leave a review is still one of the most powerful and effective ways to acquire them. And by directing customers to your landing page, you ensure that those reviews go exactly where you want them to go.

Still, your clients are susceptible to all the same deterrents to leaving a review as customers across all industries, including simply forgetting to do so. That’s why it’s useful to send them off with a tangible reminder to visit your landing page.

Our printed invites are uniquely useful in a law office environment. Here are a few ideas for incorporating our printed invites into your workflow:

• Include your URL on appointment cards or use our printed review invites as appointment cards.
• Include invites with paperwork or in paperwork folders (some have pocket slots for business cards).
• Leave invites in a business card holder at the front desk.
• Include your URL or an invite card in client mailings.

Note that we offer the proofing and printing of these cards in-house and at cost, but you may want to experiment with creating similar invitations with your own printer or find additional ways to incorporate your landing page URL into your business literature.

If you keep an email list, you might also consider using our drip campaigns or your email software to send a review invitation to your customers via email. You’ll also find an embeddable email signature snippet in the Widgets section that you can use to drive interaction with your landing page right in your correspondence. And our embeddable landing-page widgets are great for your website (find these in Dashboard > Widgets).

5. Optional: Monitor your reviews across sites and keep tabs on what people are saying about you.

It’s important to take a proactive approach to managing your online reputation. Our optional Review Monitoring add-on allows you to keep an eye on what people are saying about your business across the internet. You’ll receive email alerts whenever you receive a new review on any third-party site listing you’ve loaded into your account so that you can take quick action if needed.

6. Adjust your campaign as needed.

Review acquisition is a long-term commitment and one worth doing authentically. You may find that the most important review sites for your business change over time. We encourage you to make adjustments as you go. You can re-order, hide, show, edit and delete your review site links at any time. (You can perform all these actions in Dashboard > Funnel > Links > Your Review Site Links.)

Watch this free demonstration today to see how ReviewMaxer software works.