Find an Agent: The Sway (or Nay) of Online Testimonials

Most anyone shopping for something these days seeks out reviews, and there a ton of them online. Whether you’re in the market for a car, a smartphone, a tablet, or any other big-ticket purchase, you tend to comb through the reams of customer opinions on products, alternatives, pros and cons. The same can be said for anyone in the market for professional services. The decision to hire a particular doctor, dentist, chiropractor or attorney is not an easy one, and the online reputations of these individuals can become very handy (and valuable) in that decision process. Anyone in the market to buy or sell a home is also spending a lot of time on the web, not just searching for homes, neighborhoods and moving companies, but for the real estate agents themselves. Real estate agent reviews can go a long way in swaying prospects one way or another. But how much do people actually believe what they’re reading?

The other day I was combing through online reviews for a gadget, when I saw an extremely long and well-informed review. The amount of time and research and documentation it took to put together must have been considerable. At the end of the review, the reviewer wrote, “and no, I don’t work for [the manufacturer].”

 While no one was accusing the writer of being sneaky, it suggests that among consumers there might be at least some suspicion surrounding the source of a glowing product review. Amazon.com has some safeguards in place to prevent sketchy reviews, for instance they only allow reviews from individuals who have purchased the product on Amazon. But there are too many things being reviewed on the site for the company to monitor anything but promotional postings or objectionable material.

Where am I getting at with this? For online reviews to maintain credibility, the operators of the product or marketing platform must have some kind of a verification process in place to determine the validity of the testimonials. ReachFactor provides such a service. When a survey/testimonial is submitted by one of our Realtor’s clients, we don’t push it live until some research has been done. Did they actually do business with the agent? As buyer or seller? And then the substance of their testimonial is checked out. Only after these things are covered is the online real estate agent review pushed live.

Consumers, as well as people looking to buy or sell a home, need to feel like they can trust online testimonials from previous customers of the real estate agent. Otherwise, it’s just words.