We all get reviews from time to time. These can be either good or bad and knowing how to address these reviews can mean the difference between a returning client and one who spreads their bad opinion of you.

Here are 5 simple ways that you can get the best possible result from your reviews.

#1 Respond to them.

The most important rule to responding to your reviews is to respond the same way you would if you received that feedback in person.

Always start with a thank you and remember any type of feedback is good and can help you become better.

Next, respond by acknowledging their feedback and how you will take it on board. Your main focus is to improve as a Real Estate Agent, and this means being open and polite to suggestions.

With a positive review, you could potentially have just gained a client for life and reap return or referred business. Keep in contact with this client and nurture your rapport.

If the review is negative, reach out and see if you can recover your relationship with them. This might include a simple chat over coffee, or it might be 12-month nurture. Whichever way it is, it’s better to have attempted to sway that client’s opinion of you, then letting them freely spread the bad review.

Never leave a review, good or bad, unanswered.

#2 Use both public and private message tools

Today we will dive into what tools you could use to respond to your reviews.

Majority of your reviews would come through Rate My Agent and to a lesser extent Facebook. The plus side of these platforms is that they both allow you to either respond privately or publicly.

Responding to positive reviews is the easy part of the job and responding re-iterates to the client you really appreciate their good feedback.

As for negative reviews, there is a little bit of work involved. A good first step is a private message inquiring about the problem if you want a little more information. Once you have all the background information, you can publicly reply to the comment and make amends.

Responding to reviews can be one of an agent’s best PR tools, as it shows you are active and willing to develop from negative feedback. If all is positive, then a prospective client can see you are amazing and what you do, and hopefully, keep you in mind to sell their property.

#3 Staying calm

The hardest part of responding to your reviews is when a negative review appears, and it indicates you sold their house well under what they wanted.

When you started they wanted $1m for their house, yet it was located 3hr drive from the city, on a 300sqm block, didn’t have a roof, and the only bathroom didn’t have a toilet. This example is obviously over the top, and you would have told “them they’re dreaming” and walked away, but you get the idea the vendor is truly nuts.

The public, however, doesn’t know the finer details of the house or the sale and so it is easy to see a negative review and view it as legitimate.

The first step, stay calm and be polite. If you feel yourself getting angry, leave the comment for 24 hours and return tomorrow.

In your response, apologise and be sympathetic. Insert a little bit of your marketing, for instance, “I take pride in getting the best result for my vendors, and I regret that I haven’t achieved that for you.”

If there are lies in their review, it’s okay to mention the differences, relevant policies or inaccuracies briefly and only in a calm, polite manner though. Your main objective is to give a public response but then move the conversation offline by saying something like “I’d like to discuss your feedback further so I can continue to give my vendors the best quality service, feel free to contact me on {number} anytime.” Keyboard fights never end up being beneficial.

Lastly, if you’re worried about your tone, have a colleague, or family member read your response.

#4 Be authentic and not a robot

When responding to reviews, the biggest thing to keep in mind is to be yourself. You get to know your clients well from helping them buy or sell and hopefully these clients will end up being repeat ones.

This means they know you and your personality, so it is important to put this into your reviews. This means no automatic response that can cover multiple reviews, be unique.

A client who gives a good review won’t be impressed by a generic ‘thank you’, and the last thing you want is to put a bad taste in their mouth after working so hard to get that good review.

A bad review will only get worse if the response they get is automated looking and impersonal. It shows to them, and anyone else who looks at your reviews, that you don’t really care.

It is impossible to please 100 per cent of your clients all the time and not all your reviews will be 5 stars. You will at some stage miss a potential client because of a review his/her friend gave them, whether it was written or verbal.

This is okay.

Prospective clients look at more than just your bad reviews, they look at the good as well, and there are reviews that won’t appear digitally and only flow through word of mouth. They also look at the professionalism you responded with and the photos and information about your business.

There are a lot of factors that go into people’s choice of agent. Be the best you can be and continually improve.