Dinner and a house
By Matt Carter, Thursday, May 22, 2008.Bookmarking Sites
Do you think of Yelp.com as the place to go to find out what people are saying about that new restaurant down the street? Yelp also wants to be thought of as a tool for finding real estate professionals..
In Silicon Valley -- which, you would think would be Yelp's dream market -- it's not really happening.
In San Jose and surrounding communities, Yelp's got reviews of businesses in about two dozen broad categories, but restaurants still dominate with 1,948 entries. Real estate has grown to become the 12th largest category, with 174 entries, generating more interest than, say, education (135) or religous organizations (30).
There are reviews of a couple dozen real estate agents in the region, and perhaps many more property managers and mortgage brokers. I say perhaps, because one businesses can be listed in several categories. If you search for "property management," for example you get more than 200 entries, but a lot them are for another category, "apartments" -- the actual complexes, and the reviews talk about what they're like to live in and how they're run.
Same for the category "mortgage brokers." A lot of the entries are actually "banks & credit unions," with reviewers covering mundane details about branch operations ("There are three ATM machines at this location, and all of them are 'out of order,' " one reviewer complains. "I know San Jose is the technology capital of the world, but don't the bank have a maintenance worker to immediately attend the problem?")
Search for "real estate agents" and that's pretty much what you get, but many of the agents only have one or two "reviews" -- some written by agents themselves. There are a couple of exceptions, including an agent in Cambell, Calif. who has 22 reviews from clients and colleagues. All but one are all laudatory -- wonder if she makes a point of asking folks to plug her?
As usual with these kinds of Web 2.0 sites, there are "reputation management" concerns. How much do you want to bet this agent doesn't know she has a Yelp profile -- complete with her address phone number, and a single, three-word review from a presumably disgruntled former client describing her as "Unprofessional and dishonest"?
The anonymous user who left that review -- "Apple M." (Yelp doesn't provide last names)-- got online one day in February, trashed three businesses, and hasn't been heard from since.
Yelp says it rarely yanks such reviews, so it's up to you to rebut them (although they caution you not to "lash out" at reviewers).
If Yelp is having a hard time insinuating itself into every corner of peoples' lives in Silicon Valley, it may have even farther to go in a place like Detroit, where the lone review in the real estate category is for a downtown loft (written by somebody who no longer lives there).
Want to try marketing yourself this way -- or see whether people are talking about you? Sites where consumers can review agents include Homethinking, Agentopolis, IncredibleAgents, MyAgentReview, JudysBook, and AngiesList.
You may be surprised that you're already listed on some of these sites, which may launch will a million or more names purchased from a vendor.
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Submitted by Catherine Read on May 23, 2008 - 5:59am.
Rating a real estate agent is so different from ranking a restaurant and yet the forum is the same. A restaurant you will likely visit more than once and have experiences that cover a spectrum from excellent to poor on any given visit. An agent may be engaged once every several years or perhaps just once Expectations factor into whether the client was happy with the outcome or not, and if the client is unhappy, it's very easy to dump on the agent in a highly public way where the person doing the dumping does not have to reveal who they are.
I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people who use these sites and take the time to "rate" their agent are unhappy and disgruntled clients. Unless an agent proactively prompts all his/her clients to use a particular forum to provide feedback, most satisfied clients simply close the book on the transaction and move on.
I have found in the course of teaching training classes that agents are not regulary searching for their own names through search engines or on these specific sites to see what comes up. It's very difficult to do damage control even when you know what's out there, but it's imperative to know. Agents need to see what the consumer sees so they are prepared to address those things that may be negative. These are all excellent points and your list of sites quite comprehensive.
Submitted by Stacey Pfeifer on May 23, 2008 - 11:32am.
very timely...just had a client ask me about HomeThinking yesterday and reputation management. Here is another site to check:
http://www.agentscoreboard.com/
I'd also be curious to know:
1- how do you all try to manage your online rep?
2- do you ask clients to review your services on any of these sites as a general practice?
Submitted by Jason Anderson on June 24, 2008 - 1:01pm.
One simple way to keep track of your rep online is to sign up for Google Alerts for your name and that of your company. Google will pick up most mentions of you online.
You might also visit Technorati.com once a week, searching for your name and company. That will help you track blog mentions in the keyword tags or title.