Don't Lower Your Commission - Fight Back with Reviews!

There was an interesting piece written in Forbes this year about how merchants who collect reviews and endorsements land more business and make more money on average than those that don't. It makes intuitive sense of course, but how many real estate agents make it a habit to collect reviews & promote them?

We've all heard the phrase.. "would you ever go to the cheapest lasik surgeon?' The same is true of selecting any service professional. Do you want the cheapest one? This could potentially be the largest purchase or sale in your life. But real estate professionals on the whole are just too busy to make a coordinated effort to ask for an endorsement and continue following up until they've received one.
 

I believe all agents should be collecting endorsements all the time. Positive endorsements can help swing conversations away from lowering your commissions to the tactics to getting a home sold - which is where the conversation should be anyway.

The key to collecting and promoting endorsements is that they must be believable. How many times have you read a Yelp review only to wonder if it was bogus or not? Yelp allows anonymous reviews which I believe are on their way out. If someone is going to trust the word of someone else, it should be verified legit. At ReachFactor we verify reviews that come in based on transaction information and other audit mechanisms.

If you're not convinced that collecting reviews could mean the difference between a 2% and 3% commission, check out these stats: According to comScore and the Kelsey Group, nearly 25% of Internet users reported reading online reviews prior to paying for an offline service. 80% of them claimed the reviews had a significant influence on their purchasing habits. Depending on what is needed, consumers were willing to pay a mark-up of 20% to 100% for services and products with excellent peer ratings on review sites.

Would love your thoughts. Please comment.

If you would like to learn more about ReachFactor, please click here.

• Overwhelmed? Slow Down
• Don't Fool Yourself: We Frequently Judge a Book by its Cover
• Digital Addiction: Blurring the Lines of Reality