Client Fulfillment And The Rise Of Review Websites

I started my career selling #real estate for Century 21. I didn't make #client #fulfillment or #customer service a goal of mine or a metric I would track.

I just did my best and then tried to do better.

Maybe it was from my parents being in the industry and I watched the way they ran their brokerage. Or maybe it was from my background in hospitality management.

What ended up happening though, is I received a couple #Quality Service Awards during my early years of selling real estate. Then I started thinking about client fulfillment and customer service, and the importance of this in correlation to success of an agent or brokerage.

Succeeding By Measuring Client Fulfillment

When I took over some Century 21 offices, becoming the Managing Broker, I decided that the metric I was going to put ahead of everything else was client fulfillment and customer satisfaction. I wanted the offices to receive a Quality Service Award. Even though production seems to be the core of how we measure success in this industry, I didn't have many "Top Producers" or "Mega Agents". Actually I didn't have any. We were struggling in the production level.

I made the goal clear to the agents and to reinforce that this goal matters to us, I would read the survey's and feedback we got every week from the closed clients, at the #sales meeting. Good or bad. It was transparent. It was open.

Agents that weren't "Top Producers" felt great about the service they gave and agents that did produce more didn't get to brag and boast about how many new listings they had or closings they took.

I focused on the client feedback. Not the production.

Guess what happened?

The office got a Quality Service award. We did. As a team.

Guess what else happened?

Production started to go up. Why do you think that was?

The #Rise Of #Review Websites

It doesn't matter if it is reviewing movies at Rotten Tomatoes or people at Hot or Not, the rise of the #review website is becoming a part of the consumer experience and expectation online.

At Netlix, you can read reviews and give reviews on movies you've watched.

At Amazon, you can read reviews and give reviews on books you've read.

Even on retail sites like WalMart.com or Target.com you can see what people have had to say about products they have bought.

Part of the #Web 2.0, Social experience is people reviewing products, services and giving their feedback.

Customer Service Made Transparent

Where would you rather people review you at?

Would you rather they tell you about their bad experience or dissatisfaction or someone else?

Or would you rather tell followers on twitter, friends on facebook, family around the dinner table or other people on Yelp?

37signals, a company that makes productivity and communication software is making reviews and feedback very transparent and doing it on their #own website.

It is a simple system, that they call smiley.

After a customer contacts customer support, they get to rate the experience. Was is a smiley face, an ok face or a sad face?

Then the customer is simply asked why they rated that.

To read about this process in #37Signals own words check out their smiley app blog post.

What is even more impressive, is that 37Signals makes they last 100 reviews they get visible to the public. So the number is constantly changing.

Check that out here smiley.37signals.com

When I last checked it was 93% said great. What does it say now for you?

What About Review #Websites In Real Estate

I've seen a lot of review websites come and go over the years. Even way back when I was still selling. Some of them didn't seem authentic or transparent to me. In fact, it felt more like they were trying to shake down or even black mail the agent.

We've come a long way since then, and reviews for Realtors are popping up on Google Places, Yelp and Zillow.com has even got into the game now.

But, I want to encourage you to take a page from 37Signals. Do this yourself. Make it a part of your #business DNA.

An example of this in real estate already is from Thompson's Realty a brokerage in Phoenix, AZ.

They have created a site called ReviewOurAgents.com

But more than this, just like 37Siganls, they are asking for reviews on their own website and displaying them for others to see. To see the reviews CLICK HERE

Starting Using Reviews

#Start using reviews to build trust with prospects.

Start using reviews to get better at serving your clients.

Start using reviews to increase your production.