When I was a little girl…a long, long time ago, I remember my daddy saying to me, “Remember who you are.” He never failed to say this just about every time I walked out the door for a night of fun with my friends.
He knew that once your reputation is lost it is hard to get it back. This wisdom applies for both our online and off line reputation.
Everyday we deal with agents who when we get an offer from them, there is either a happy dance or a cringe. It will either be a smooth transaction or touch and go the whole way.
In a multiple offer situation, I’ve had agents tell me they would like to work with me because 1) they know I will work and negotiate to the death, and 2) I will be nice about it.
Online
Recently I finished up a transaction with an agent who shouts from the first page of her web-site about what a great communicator she is, including returning phone calls and her top of the line customer service. Ummmm… I don’t think so…One part of me wanted to shout out a status update on Facebook pointing out the discrepancy but the little voice inside me said, “don’t”.
She is on FB and in the midst of a transaction could have recognized it.
Right now there is a big push for management of your online reputation. Most of us have Google Alerts set up for our name and company to get an alert when we are mentioned online (or to see when the never ending splogs steal our content). That is easy to do and the easiest way to monitor our online reputation.
Occasionally on Twitter someone will ask,”anyone know of a good Realtor in______?”
Recently, Zillow opened up their platform for clients to give us reviews. Yelp has been doing this for awhile but at least in my area, I’m not seeing too many Realtor reviews.
Monitoring
Regardless of what method(s) we use, it is up to us to be monitoring our reputation on line. If someone leaves a negative or a not so shinning review, we can respond back.
I use to at the end of every transaction, send a survey out to my past clients. I asked for their honest opinion because I told them I was trying to improve my service. We included a self addressed, stamped envelope and we had a good response from our clients. The last couple of years that ROI decreased on folks mailing them back so we stopped doing it.
Your Google Profile is an awesome place to ask people to review you. I have a couple on there, one was a surprise and one was solicited.
One thing I checked recently was I went Google and put in my name+reviews. It was so informative I even set up a Google Alert for it. The data was different than just doing a search on my name.
In digging down about 10 pages…I found some very old comments indexed where I had commented on different blogs. Now Activerain supposedly has <do not follow> links in the comments but there sure was a lot of comments in that reputation search.
I even found one where I asked someone for a Seafood Recipe!
Managing In Real Life
Managing your name in real life is a lot easier. We either bite our tongues, or loose it with people. We either do a good job of customer service and get referrals, or we don’t serve them well and we never hear from the again.
I can’t count the times I have hung up with a Short Sale negotiator and screamed my head off.
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp said, “I think we live in a new age of transparency, which is a great thing if you’re fantastic at customer service. Customer service is the new marketing.”
If that statement is true and I have no reason to believe otherwise, then it is even more important that we provide great customer service and monitor our reputations. We know blogging and social media is just our voice going out to a larger audience.
People like to do business with people they know, that they feel are like them, that they can trust. Trust… being discrete. Trust…not doing anything or saying anything online we wouldn’t say or do in person. Trust…not just saying you give awesome customer service but actually doing it.
Or as my daddy said, “Don’t forget who you are!”
Ken Brand
January 25, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Love-Love it. I’ll be sharing this with our tribe at our next team meeting. Thanks.