Read this and join!

Last week we were contacted by a 'client of a client'. It happens more often than you might think, simply because we always engage in online conversations with reviewers when there are issues with their reviews.  These - the issues - may be simply a case of grammar being corrected or more important errors of fact or potentially misleading statements. Anyhow, this one turned out to be more interesting than the general run. This is what the reviewer had to say (in this case a vendor of a property in South London):

 

"I was visited by seven agents, including Winkworth who happened to quote the highest percentage commission (the spread between lowest and highest was 0.8%); when I asked her how she justified this she responded by handing me her iPad and asked me to read the reviews of their service on their own website and on Google.

After I instructed Winkworth - who then fulfilled all their promises relating to the sale of my home - she explained that all her instructions and a great many of her office's enquiries, especially through their website, were gained thanks to their reviews. 

She went on to stress just how important it would be, once my sale was finalised, for me to write a review to their website and then copy that review to Google, which I am pleased to say I have done more than willingly."

That 0.8% adds up to £3,933 extra revenue on the average London house price; multiply that by the number of properties sold by the agent in question in a year and you begin to realise just how valuable professional review management can be - bearing in mind that estate agents are competing over a finite sales and lettings pool and the only way to improve results is by first maximising instructions and then commission per deal.

Consider this: HelpHound's full service costs the business concerned less than two percent of that uplift. Are we worth it? You bet we are!

Further reading:

• Winkworth investors set for special dividend after exceptionally strong performance - could we humbly suggest reading this and then asking 'who has been responsible for Winkworth's review management for the past five years'?