How can you get more online reviews without reinventing the wheel? Leverage a few basic principles of psychology to build your review system and start building up your online reviews to generate your more leads and referrals.


There are three psychological components at play that you can leverage to build and leverage your online reviews. I highly recommend reading the book "Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion" by Dr. Robert Caldini - in it he reveals 3 social psychological phenomenons that you can benefit from (I've also included a video that summarizes these below).
 

#1 Social Proof or Consensus


Humans are adverse to risk or things unknown. Typically we will "follow the crowd" or the advice or behaviour of friends, family, or close social circles (even if the advice is poor which I'm sure you've had to talk some clients out of following!). This aversion to risk is why referrals work so incredibly well (they provide 'proof' to dissolve the unknowns).

#2 Social Perception  

Humans want to be viewed as committed and consistent. As a result, once your client publicly recommends you in the form of a review, they are actually more likely to continue recommending you. This is because they don't want to be viewed as a flip-flopper, they want to be perceived as consistent. Because of this, having a public review system in place not only helps you with the Social Proof described in #1, it also affects the psychology of your past clients causing them to in turn be more loyal to you and more likely to continue recommending you. You will actually get more referrals and business from them even via word of mouth once they publicly review you!

#3 Authority

Having lots of social proof creates a stronger position of authority because it isn't coming from you, it's coming from the public community. That means, it isn't just you sharing your experience and credentials hoping people believe you, it's the positive impact of your experience and credentials coming directly from the people in the community you have impacted. It's kind of like the difference between an actor telling you to go see their new movie and an actual impartial movie-goer honestly recommending the movie based on their experience - the latter is going to carry more weight, and if there are lots and lots of positively impacted movie-goers sharing their experience, it's going to seem worth investing your time to go see.

Bonus! Reciprocity

There is actually a forth psychology trick you can use to your advantage. After you receive a review or testimonial from your client, you can extend the reciprocity even further by closing the loop. We recommend sending a surprise gift to them in the mail to bring the psychology of Reciprocity into play. After you ask them for an online rating, they'll think they have their part or done you a favour. So when you send them something as a surprise, they will be even more happy with you than before you even asked and will be even more likely to want to talk about you and refer you when the topic of real estate comes up.


The hidden psychological benefit that you will experience is the great feeling you'll get when you receive the public ratings and reviews from your clients. It just makes you feel good which in turn gives you even more confidence in your sales and listing presentations. Once you have enough of them, you will even start to reference and use it as part of your listing presentation. We've got clients now that save screenshots or print out their public ratings and reviews to make them part of their listing presentations to reinforce the social proof during their sales process!

You can check out the video below for more info, or if you need some help refining your review and reputation strategy, click the button to book a strategy call!