Type “home builder” into the search engine for most major real estate markets and you’re likely to find something alarming: online customer reviews.
This is a bonanza of good fortune if you have a five star rating. When buyers see positive peer reviews on third party sites about your company it can build more trust and awareness than thousands of dollars spent on advertising.
If you have a bad review however, this can cause buyers to be wary and may prevent them from ever visiting your website and your Sales Office. A bad online review can damage your brand and cost you sales for months or even years.
Managing your brand online takes a diligent and consistent SEO effort, but the real answer is not simply outranking review sites. It’s proactively managing the entire customer experience from first click to close and beyond.
Buyers who do not have somewhere to voice their concerns within your organization are more likely to direct their frustration publicly online. Encouraging direct feedback from buyers is not as simple as listing a phone number, an email address, or a contact form on your website. Buyers need to view your company as open and transparent and committed to customer service. They need the option of anonymity (not publicly posted to a social media site) and more importantly, they need to feel that someone on the other end is listening and engaged.
Feedback is sometimes hard to hear, but when you have the opportunity to respond and resolve a concern directly it keeps you in control of the customer experience and in front of the online conversation about your company. Bad reviews can live on in the search engines for months or year and have a very real impact on your bottom line.
Here’s a simple action plan that you can begin today to give buyers an open forum to talk to you and limit negative reviews online:
Talk Back: Create an Online Feedback Form
Create an online talk back section that creates a way for prospects, buyers, and homeowners to talk about anything from a leaky faucet to raving about a Sales Representative that provided excellent service. This can be a simple page on your website with a form that includes name, email, phone, and ample space to cover any topic. For best results, all contact information should be optional.
Example of a basic customer feedback form:
Manage It
Of course, setting up a place for buyers to give direct feedback is the easy part. The hard part (but well worth the time) is developing the policies and procedures of how to track, respond, route, and resolve all of the feedback that is received. Is it a customer service issue? How is that routed, how soon, and how is it tracked for resolution? The same applies to sales inquiries, employee issues, vendor inquiries, and more. If it’s a complaint, how do you determine what is addressed by the front line response team and what is escalated to management? Do you respond to issues on weekends, and if not how is that communicated on the feedback form?
Distribute It
Feedback is most effective when the entire organization is aware and involved in the feedback loop. New comments should be cc’d to mid-level management in real time. Daily or weekly reporting (issues, status, and resolution) should be delivered to higher-level management (this will vary depending on the size and culture of your organization).
Promote It
Build a promotion around your talk back page to communicate a customer-centric approach that distinguishes you from your competition. Promote your message with an invitation to talk back and include it in videos, email, on Facebook, on Twitter, on your website, in your sales offices, in PR, on Craigslist, on ads, and other online and offline touchpoints.
Track It
Opening the door to buyer feedback is a Pandora’s Box, and it won’t all be pretty. However by tracking the comments that you receive you will begin to see trends emerge. If 43% of your comments mention that your pricing is too high or your location is too noisy, then your market is trying to tell you something that is actionable.
Creating a talk back channel gives you more control about how complaints are managed and resolved before it hits the web. This simple act can do more than minimize negative reviews. It can create positive reviews that pay big dividends in the form of more leads and more sales.
Are you currently using talk back forms in your online marketing? Tell us about your experience in the comments.
