How to: Get More Testimonials

Testimonials or reviews from current or past clients are increasingly important to real estate agents.

In an age of "social proof," where 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, testimonials are the new "word of mouth" marketing.

As a real estate agent, you should be featuring them on all of your marketing materials, including your website and social media channels. But how do you go about getting them? That can be the tricky part, especially because you are already so busy with the business of buying and selling houses.

Here are our top three tips to help you collect client reviews that will, in turn, help you collect more clients:

Ask for them.

It's hard to get something if you don't ask for it! Make asking for testimonials part of your process at closing. Don't say, "Will you leave me a good review on my website?" (which will probably go in one ear and out the other). Instead, ask for feedback: "What did you like about the home buying/selling process?" You can do this via email or in person, depending on your level of comfort.

Some clients might even let you film their response with your smartphone, giving you video content that you can easily upload to your website, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Facebook is also a great place to collect testimonials, especially if you add their free review feature to your business page, which brings us to our next tip...

Curate from everywhere.

You probably already have more testimonials than you realize. Spend a morning combing your emails, your Facebook account and your Twitter feed for kind words from past clients. Copy and paste great quotes directly onto a page on your website (in some cases, you might want to ask permission first). If someone said, "Thanks for the expert service," you can either use it as is or reach out to them with a quick message asking if they could elaborate.

Don't forget to cross-post your testimonials across all of your marketing channels and social profiles, so they will be easily found no matter where a prospect is looking.

Make it easy.

Don't make clients jump through hoops to leave you feedback. If you use a service that requires customers to call in or sign up, they probably won't! The path of least resistance is usually whatever mode they've used to communicate with you throughout your working relationship, whether that's by text, email, phone or something else.

Uh-oh. You got a negative review. Now what?

No one likes a negative review, but the best thing to do is to see it for what it is: an opportunity. Negative testimonials give you the chance to demonstrate your customer service skills and identify weak spots where you might have room to improve.

Remember the Domino's Pizza Turnaround? By acting to make positive changes, they actually turned an onslaught of negative reviews into a record-breaking profit.

For more concrete tips on how to handle a negative review, read Negative Agent Reviews: What to Do.

To view the original article, visit the Point2Agent blog.