How do newer clients or potential customers know how good your service really is? Back in the days where internet wasn’t impactful, businesses needed word of mouth recommendations from their current and past customers, usually that’s how businesses flourished and in the case of certain businesses I know, they still grow using that strategy. An integral part of any business includes Testimonials. They are an important part of marketing, and getting more important daily. It’s become a standard practice now that many agents push their clients to individual websites like Zillow, Yelp, or merely collect emails and republish them. But the problem is you can’t risk pushing your customers to one platform, for a simple fact that it is unpredictable if the platform would go away or change into something entirely different overtime, like for example, MySpace or Friendster. Also, is it worth the expense.
However, I was searching for a testimonial solution or referral solution as some would call it, that would help me solve the problem of soliciting testimonials from clients and save my time while I focus on building my business. So, I basically zeroed in on these two services that were good (Though I tried them both, Reach150 worked best for me, for reasons mentioned below)
1. RealSatisfied: RealSatisfied costs $99 a year, and free for Century 21 agents. It only works with verified closings, so will limit you to closings going forward and a limited number of recent closings. The advantage is their recommendations are “verified” which they offer carries more value. Realsatisfied allows the agent to have one point of contact for their testimonials, then pushes them to Realtor.com and social media sites (Facebook and Twitter), as well as creates a profile where you can link all other social media. You can see my profile here, but I have no testimonials yet as I have not closed any transactions with my company since this service became available.
2. Reach150: Reach150 is a customer testimonial product that consolidates testimonials, and manages the process of testimonial solicitation that you can not only use with future closings and recent, but also all past clients as well as vendors. This is ideal for an agent or any business person that is looking to build quickly their testimonial backlog. You can solicit anyone who has an email address, as well as can link both your profile and solicitation in your email or on your website. I was quickly able to accumulate testimonials, as you can see on my profile here. Reach150 is both further reaching (past clients, non-closed transactions) but also more expensive, with plans starting at $25 per month. This is also a product appropriate for non-Realtors, so you can introduce to business owners both as a way to solicit testimonials and as a way for them to build their inventory. My customers found it quick and easy to use, and I found it easy to both guide them with a link in my email signature and their web page to input a number of clients at one time.
Again, both these products are at the risk of going away one day, but any smart agent will ask customers to complete one testimonial, then copy and paste the same into the other sources you need. Real150 works best for this, as you can create a list of those customers glad to help, when they respond to Reach150 I would ask them to also complete one in Zillow, Realtor.com and Yelp by sending them the right link. That way both your assets and your reputation is diversified.
What is your strategy? I would love your feedback in comments below.
Guest Author:
Bill Gross,
Based in Beverly, CA; Bill Gross provides coaching and tools that improve the productivity, profitability, and lifestyle of his clients.
