Handling Negative Real Estate Reviews

How To Deal with Negative Real Estate Reviews

In real estate, negative reviews are just part of the business. They aren’t fun and they can really sting but they do happen. Avoiding them completely either means you aren’t taking enough challenges with your business or you aren’t asking enough people for reviews. Negative reviews can be an opportunity. You can respond with positive customer service and actually put your business in a better position despite the negative review.

In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn how to handle negative reviews in real estate.

The email we use to ask for a review.

Hi NAME,

I'm so happy that we had such a great experience working together. Now this is me doing my real estate agent thing but you were a fantastic client and I really enjoyed working with you!

Absolutely no pressure at all but testimonials/reviews go a long way in our small business. If you are open to providing reviews we would be overjoyed if you could review us on Google.

You can write one online here: Google Review

No need to respond and no worries if you would rather not! 

Thanks so much in advance!

You will see the “Google Review” link opens up to a review page. You can learn how to do this here.

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.

[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery and today we are talking all about reviews and not any reviews. We are talking specifically about negative reviews. What we can do about them and how they can actually be positive for our business.

[00:00:30] Now before we jump into negative reviews let's just talk about how important reviews are for our business. Real estate agents tend to not like asking for reviews. It's similar to asking for referrals. We tend to shy away from it. We think people do not want to provide reviews and we're concerned that if they do they're going to be negative. Now 9 times out of 10 when you ask somebody to review you they will give you a glowing review. They will give you a positive review and a lot of the time they actually want to give you a review. They just don't know where and they don't know how to best do it in the show notes for this episode. You can go to the show notes you can look at an e-mail that I send to clients asking them for a review. It's a very simple short e-mail that directs them exactly to where I want them to review us you'll see right in the e-mail if you click on the link it will shoot you right over to where I want you to review us. Now depending on where that is maybe it's Yelp maybe it's Google maybe it Zillow wherever that might be for you. You do have to make it easy for people. You make it easy for people and they will end up doing it. Make it challenging for them and they won't.

[00:01:39] Now if you don't think reviews are important I'd ask you to question that belief and to challenge that belief and wonder if you are saying that because you just don't want to go out and get them or if you actually don't think they're valuable. Honestly I can't think of the last time I went to a restaurant and didn't look up the reviews or at least read a few reviews before going so they are important. It's just a matter of us asking for them.

[00:02:02] Now let's get into the negative side. What happens when we receive a negative review? First off we do not need to freak out about this. This is actually important part of building your business and getting negative reviews, as crazy as it sounds, can actually be a positive thing because they are an opportunity and we're going to get into why that is.

[00:02:24] So first off don't panic understand that it's part of building a business just like we talked about yesterday when we got into e-mail on subscribers. Yes it's still going to sting. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the business or how much business you're doing. The negative reviews will still sting. However you do not have to panic because it is part of building a business.

[00:02:45] Now let's talk about what you do when you do receive a negative review. The first thing I would recommend doing is responding quickly and responding on a platform where they left the review. So this is very easy if it's on say Google where they can leave a Google Review and then the owner can respond to that in responding. Always thank them right off the start. Thank the person. And then get into some of their complaints and what it is and where they were challenged. You want to answer their questions and you want to answer it and you want to proceed with it like you're talking to a roomful of people not just that one individual. And the reason why I say this is because your response to the negative review is your opportunity to showcase your customer service when you respond to the negative review in a positive way addressing their concerns potentially bringing up some solutions. Then finally signing off and letting them know to contact you personally. You are showcasing your good customer service as crazy as this sounds. If on the other hand you decide to be aggressive and go against the person and tell them why they're wrong then you're actually putting up a wall between you and other consumers that are out there because they're seeing how you're responding you're responding in a negative and aggressive way and chances are they do not want to do business with you. It's funny when I go and choose to go to a restaurant to go to a hotel whatever that might be. I look at the negative reviews but I don't look at the negative reviews for what the person is saying. I'm looking at the negative reviews so I can see how the owner is responding because this is more important to me than what the negative reviewer is saying.

[00:04:30] Now sometimes you are just going to get those trolls out there and they're just being negative for the sake of being negative. Again don't get into it with them thank them and potentially these are people that have not even used your services in which case you can respond like that and let them know that you don't have any record of working with them or something along those lines. But if it is a true complaint respond to the complaint and be very professional about it and think of it like you're speaking to a full room of people and know that people are going to be reading the negative review and they're also going to be reading your response because that is so important.

[00:05:07] Now on that note, studies actually show that people trust businesses more that have some negative reviews as well as some positive reviews. They're not just looking for companies that have five star reviews across the board. If you have 500 plus five star reviews that almost looks somewhat fake so that can be a concern for consumers. If you have a realistic number of reviews and even if you're brand new and this is just a handful that's totally fine and you have some that are good and then maybe one negative one then people are looking at that and they understand the people that have been reviewing you are real people. So with the odd negative review in there as long as there's not so many negative ones that it's pulling down your score in which case you do have to look at your business practice of course. But if you have a couple of negative ones but they're outnumbered by the positive ones the consumer will look at that and studies show that this is more of a trustworthy business because true people are reviewing you and it's not just fake accounts.

[00:06:09] The next tip is to take action. So if you've received a negative review and you've responded to the negative review then make sure you're taking action and you're making some change. If the negative review had a comment about your business practice and you had to make a change because of the review no worries you've learned something from that. Make sure that you're putting in the review that you appreciate their comments and that you've made this change. So again it's like you're talking to a roomful of people and you're publicly announcing that you're making this positive change. And then of course go back to the client and do what you can.

[00:06:45] Finally don't dwell on the negative review. Again it's something that happens in real estate. It's almost like losing a client or losing a listing presentation. Yes it's no fun. We don't look forward to it. It's just not something we need to be dwelling on. And look if you're losing the odd listing presentation here and there that's usually somewhat of a good sign. It means that you're actually getting listing presentations and you're probably closing the majority of them. So being that you're not closing every single one is not the biggest deal. What you want are more of these presentations and more appointments and it's the same thing with reviews. You're not going to satisfy everybody but you definitely need the positive ones to outweigh the negative ones. But we do have to understand that there will be the odd negative one and it's more about how we respond than trying to avoid getting negative reviews altogether.

[00:07:37] Thank you very much for listening to this episode. I really appreciate it. Remember you can ask a top producer anything I do is rate interview the show head over to our Web site and go to the free coaching section. Let us know where you did that. And a top producer gives you a call. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:07:52] We'll see you in the next lesson this episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.