Mastering Customer Reviews: Navigating Feedback and Standing Out in a Competitive Market

Unlock the secrets to mastering reviews and setting your business apart from the crowd. Join us on the Standing Out in Ohio podcast as we promise to transform your approach to year-end planning with strategic insights for real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Discover how understanding your numbers, particularly in marketing, can equip you with a powerful roadmap for the year ahead. We emphasize the untapped potential of referrals and share actionable advice on how you can become a magnet for them. Our candid discussion extends to the invaluable experiences gleaned from mastermind groups, offering fresh perspectives and solutions to whatever challenges you may face. Moreover, we delve into the world of client reviews, underscoring their vital role in boosting your business’s visibility and credibility in a saturated market.

Navigating the often tricky waters of customer feedback is a journey in itself, and we're here to guide you. Ignoring complaints can inadvertently validate them, which is why we focus on the art of responding to negative reviews with integrity and tact. Learn how a well-crafted response can transform even the harshest criticism into a golden opportunity for growth. We share real-life incidents of going above and beyond for clients, underlining the moral obligations tied to honesty in business. While not every client will always be satisfied, our conversation reinforces the importance of sticking to your company’s core values and responding constructively. Tune in as we chart a course through the intricate landscape of customer interaction, ensuring that you not only survive but thrive in this competitive environment.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.

Speaker 2 0:30

Hey everybody, Welcome to the Stand Out Live podcast. This is Jim, Of course. With me is Laura, the office goddess.

Speaker 3 0:36

Hello everyone.

Speaker 2 0:37

All right. So, Laura, I don't know what the date is. It really doesn't matter. First week or so of December Slowing down, it's that time of year. First week or so of December slowing down, it's that time of year you start thinking Second week or so of December.

Speaker 2 0:47

Yeah, Time of year where you start planning what you're going to do. I know on our, if you get our email, you get our list of CE classes that we offer and then a couple couple just like presentations. But tomorrow I know we're having something where it's just kind of an open forum to contact us and hey, you want to talk about your plans for next year, what went well this past year maybe, what didn't go well, kind of planning.

Speaker 3 1:18

So it's kind of a little bit of a mastermind, pretty loosely formed and it's with somebody that doesn't have a vested interest in your company. Just kind of a sounding board to you know. Bounce some ideas off of. This is how this went this year. What do you think? Things like that?

Speaker 2 1:35

yeah, you and I've been involved in masterminds. I've been involved in since like 2012. We know how they run, we know how valuable they are, so we're not bad pieces people to talk to in order to get some feedback. Yeah, and I've been a mastermind where everybody's in the same type of business, and I've been other where everybody's in a different business, and either way they're valuable. But anyway, this time of year you kind of start evaluating what you're doing.

Speaker 3 2:04

This is where it's important to know your numbers. Know your numbers. What did you spend on marketing? What specific areas did you spend for marketing? How did you get a return on those? What was it? Yep.

Speaker 2 2:15

And you start thinking about what can I do better or try and get more of next year? And I want to hone that toward referrals.

Speaker 3 2:26

Yes.

Speaker 2 2:27

A lot of people. They do not get a lot of referrals. Maybe they don't know how to get referrals and when they get them, especially bad ones, they don't know how or if they should respond, and we will talk about that.

Speaker 4 2:42

But first let's listen to this Habitation investigation is's listen to this For a great home inspection. You really can't go wrong. Visit HomeInspectionsInOhiocom.

Speaker 2 3:11

All right, laura. How many reviews do we have If you add them all, all combined? Can we have some on Google, we have some on Facebook.

Speaker 3 3:21

Listen360. Yeah, listen360. Facebook Over 3,000, easily, oh yeah, easily, over 3,000.

Speaker 2 3:34

I kind of think we have like 4,000, something like that Right now we almost have. We have about 1,700. Just Google reviews, just Google reviews, just google reviews, just google reviews. If I look here, there's 2100 on listen 360 so that we got 4000, yeah, and then I kind of thought there was 500 no, I'm sorry, 200 and some on facebook, facebook. So we have a 4000 review. So then we know how to get reviews.

Speaker 3 4:06

Yes.

Speaker 2 4:07

Obviously, and it really is not difficult to get reviews.

Speaker 3 4:13

It has to be a consistent manner, though.

Speaker 2 4:15

Yeah, well, and here's this what is somebody's motivation to give you a review? Often, if it's average, they're not going to go out of the way to give you a review. They need to be motivated, or it has to be very easy for them to do it yes in order to make it easy for them, you need to send the client that you worked with a link to. Hey, please give me a review. Here's the link. Do and hopefully it's so simple they just click and review.

Speaker 2 4:48

They click speak in, say it's on their cell phone, they can speak into it, give the review and then it's submit, and that's it. There are programs that you can send them for them to give you a video review. Nice, okay, they've been out for a couple years, you get very low engagement yeah very low engagement, which is a lot of people are not into that, they're.

Speaker 2 5:13

I don't want to say shy, but I do well, dude, how many times we've had, we've had any podcast guests for a while. We got some that are wanting to do it, but we haven't really scheduled them yet. But I've had people who are going to be on the podcast nervous about the video. I'm like, dude, we're not going to do a video on you, we're just going to.

Speaker 3 5:32

It's just a Zoom recording so that we can record it.

Speaker 2 5:36

We could do a video, but we're just going to do it this way. And they're like oh okay, because they didn't want to come, because they were afraid of the media.

Speaker 2 5:41

Right, but you don't get good engagement on those, so you need to get them. You need to ask and have a simple way of doing that, and that could be just an automated email that you send out that has a link to hey. Here's a review site and if you like what we did, please give us a nice review. If you didn't like, hey, email me back, let me know. Let me know what the problem was so we can fix it. People appreciate that, but you need to ask for reviews. Yes, and Lauren, I've noticed over the years that not a whole lot of real estate agents have a bunch of reviews.

Speaker 3 6:19

It's very rare that they get reviews. Yeah, yeah that they get reviews.

Speaker 2 6:27

Yeah, let's look up a search for home inspection reviews. Here's somebody in the south. We'll say it's somewhere in Ohio. They got 12. Here's one that has a decent number 85. It's not showing a whole lot of you popping up, no, in the area that I'm looking on. It's not showing me all I need to pop it up in the area that I'm looking on. But we've looked at real estate agents and oh, there's a Rate, my Agent. Yeah, but the one we've seen, they don't have a whole bunch of reviews.

Speaker 3 7:09

No, zillow has the ability to have people reviewed.

Speaker 2 7:14

All right, I'm on Zillow page right now. This is Columbus, ohio. These agents here got a decent number. They got a couple hundred, but you know what? You scroll down just a little bit and now you're seeing some lower ones.

Speaker 3 7:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:39

We know a lot of these Yep. We got a lot of good agents that definitely recommended us for things. But you get lower and lower. But what do you do if you get a bad review? That's the question. This is a lot of people. What am I going to do if I get a bad review? What's going to happen? They wanted this, so there's a book out. It's called hug your haters. Uh, jay bear b-a-e-r. That's how he spelled last name, jay Baer. I thought I was going to hate this book.

Speaker 3 8:24

You thought you were going to hate the Hug your Haters.

Speaker 2 8:26

I was going to hate the Hug your Haters book.

Speaker 3 8:29

Yes.

Speaker 2 8:30

Because I? Because it's how to embrace complaints and keep your customers Like all right, I got somebody who's complaining. Do I really want to embrace the hater? Do I want to embrace?

Speaker 1 8:41

the hater. Do I want to?

Speaker 2 8:42

embrace that? No, because like, oh, I really don't want to, because we do get some bad reviews.

Speaker 3 8:49

But they're rare.

Speaker 2 8:50

It's very rare.

Speaker 3 8:52

And it's usually not a client.

Speaker 2 8:54

We definitely have to have that people. It's not an actual client that's complaining and we're going to get those to disappear. But man, we've had like dude, that's in the report. Or we've had an agent give us a bad review and he was complaining that it was like the report wasn't organized the way he would prefer it. I'm like dude. If you go to the review and look at it, that's your summary. That makes it super easy. If you want us to write things up by order, this is what I sound like. You wanted order of severity, so the more like. You wanted Order of severity, so the more serious issues at the top of the report. All right, now this report is going to be a nightmare for you to write a request to remedy or summarize. It's a nightmare now for you. We do our inspections by area, but the report is by system. So like electrical is one area, plumbing is one area, but the report is by system, so like electrical is one area.

Speaker 2 10:04

Plumbing is one area. So if you say electrical is bad, you have an electrician that the client wants to use, you go all right. Well, here's all the electrical issues, right here, instead of reading the whole freaking report trying to pull out every electrical.

Speaker 2 10:19

Yeah, our system it's easy, it's a good system. This agent wanted to give a bad review because it wasn't simple enough for his simple mind. I don't know. I don't think he's a good agent. I never met the guy. I never heard of the guy. He could have just called hey, is there a way? It's a summary report right here. This is why it's organized this way. But anyway, Hug, your Haters, tells you that if you get a bad review, you need to engage them on that review. And Laura's looking at me like why in the heck would you do that? And this is why and I'll, Because here's what I want to avoid you don't want to get on the review. Let's say Google debating with them.

Speaker 4 11:11

Right.

Speaker 3 11:13

Because then it's just a shit show. Right.

Speaker 2 11:17

And whoever it is giving a bad review, which, if a client is mad, that's their motivation to give you a review. So people only review you if they're extremely happy or extremely pissed.

Speaker 1 11:31

Or extremely pissed.

Navigating Customer Reviews and Responses

Speaker 2 11:34

Those times they will motivate themselves enough to go give you a review. If you make it easy, well, pissed off, people always give you a review. If you make it easy, well, people always give you a bad review anyway. But the generally happy people are more likely to give you a review if you make it easy Because they're not. I mean, they're satisfied, they're happy, but they're not overly motivated. So you've got to make it easy. But anyway, when you get a bad review, you're supposed to respond to them.

Speaker 3 12:04

And what is his rationale for that?

Speaker 2 12:06

Because if you do not respond when the public reads it well, if you don't respond, the public reads that complaint and you're not addressing it then that somehow adds credibility to that complaint. And you're not addressing it, then that somehow adds credibility to that complaint. You're not a responsible enough company to take care of the issue, gotcha, I can understand that. So they want you to reply to them and take it off offline.

Speaker 3 12:41

Okay, so you've got somebody who's upset and they post a review and you go online. I'm so sorry to hear that you had an issue. Please contact our office at this address and someone will be in touch with Correct.

Speaker 2 12:55

Correct, and I know we have. I don't think it was on on a review or it was just the email. I know we got business because somebody liked how we responded to a complaint.

Speaker 3 13:08

Oh really, I did not know that.

Speaker 2 13:13

I'm trying to actually pull up some of these reviews. I'm trying to get the whole list of all the Google, the Google. There was a page where I could pull up all the rank them by lowest to highest. When I can't, yeah, I don't know, but sometimes when we get a bad review, the item that I complain about is actually in the report. Most of the time it is in the report.

Speaker 3 13:49

You would be amazed how many times somebody just calls to complain and Amy will ask if they read the report and their comment is, well, no.

Speaker 2 14:02

Well, that makes no sense. Why would you not read the report?

Speaker 3 14:06

What you paid for? Yeah, there's several, and Amy's like you need to read your report. What you paid for? Yeah, there's, there's several, and amy's like you need to read your report. It's in there. Look at these line items that's insane.

Speaker 2 14:18

I did not know. There's a lot of people just yeah, so they're calling to ask about the inspection or complain or they're calling.

Speaker 3 14:23

They're calling to complain that we missed something, and so so Amy will pull up the report because, you know she does, she does her thing and she'll be like dude. Did you look at? You know numbers X, y and Z? And he's like, well, I didn't read the report. Well then, how do you know we missed anything?

Speaker 2 14:45

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 14:47

You are. You, as the client, are responsible for reading your report. Your agent may guide you and help you, but as the client and the homeowner, you need to educate yourself about the house that you're purchasing.

Speaker 2 15:02

Well, remember we had one buyer call us ask, wanting help, because her agent would not look at the review and look at the report report and not help her out I spent an hour going through the report with her yeah, trust me, we're getting the referral for the future.

Speaker 3 15:17

That age is not because you provide well, no that agent has been an agent for a very long time and I was very surprised that they, like they, just refused to talk to them. So I don't know if there were extenuating circumstances. There might be a background story to that, but yeah, I spent a good hour going through the report with them and helping them with questions that they had.

Speaker 2 15:44

So yeah, I don't know what to do on that, but yeah, there's some background story, but anyway, you need to tell them. Hey, I'm very sorry that you're having this issue. Please go to this page so we can look into that. You know, I haven't been in time. I was a little irritated with this one. Somebody put a post, a review, and said, hey, you guys missed this and I'll get carbon monoxide. Could have killed me saying all this crazy stuff.

Speaker 3 16:11

Okay.

Speaker 2 16:13

I was like, well, alright, I'm going to look at the report. Every single thing they talked about was in the report and as safety items and not in a way they were leveled up as an issue. They were on the summary. So my response I'm like, I'm sorry you have this issue, but did you even read the report? And here's number like 43, 47, 68.

Speaker 2 16:39

All dealing with what you were complaining Talk about this issue and I said I don't know if you didn't read the report, but if somebody read the report for you and told you there's no issues, they either lied or they don't care about you. You need to go talk to them. And that person took down that review because they realized oh shit, they told something got missed there somewhere at what point do we not sue them for slander right?

Speaker 3 17:10

but they're's provably false and it is there.

Speaker 2 17:15

So you are supposed to always reply. I gotta tell you there's one review I have not replied to and this is the one where they were seemed a little crazy and they were seemed a little crazy a little out there and they were upset and the inspector even talked to us after the inspection yeah, after the inspection, before the report was even sent out, that the person was might be a potential issue, because they were upset that the inspector would not exaggerate issues with the house because the dude wanted to get a special deal in negotiations.

Speaker 2 17:56

Yeah, so basically, the client was upset because we wouldn't lie to help him get a better deal. So even when you use things perfectly and morally correct you can still get a bad review. So a couple bad reviews means nothing right, you're gonna get that you.

Speaker 3 18:17

You cannot please everybody all of the time. You just do your best, what your company morality is, and you abide by that and you make that consistent yeah, it was just anyway.

Speaker 2 18:32

So that one I'm like man, that one I struggled with, I'm like do I even engage this because it was so?

Speaker 2 18:41

like that one was the one like I think I had email with back and forth with this person as well, trying to help them out, trying to clarify things, and there's no down. There was no, there's no like logic. So I'm like, dude, there's not even a point. But nope, nope, nope, so just ignored it on google. That's the only time I've ever like not responded. Sometimes it takes me a couple weeks to respond to things like I get busier or it gets late at night.

Speaker 3 19:10

I'm like, alright, I need to do this tomorrow.

Speaker 2 19:13

Yeah, I need to do it tomorrow, then tomorrow comes and goes. But we do have some reviews right now that I have not responded to. They're good reviews, I just haven't responded to them. Well, somebody did. Did you respond to something that says thank you Two days ago I?

Speaker 3 19:38

wanted to do something, and I thought you'd already responded to it, because it came through.

Speaker 2 19:44

Somebody. I thought you'd respond. Anyway, somebody you know, maybe our website guys. Okay, but anyway, always respond to reviews, the negative ones. You're you're you're responding to them is not to satisfy them. Well, it's not. Your reason for responding to a bad review is not to satisfy them A hundred percent. The reason to respond to them is so that potential customers can see that you respond and you'll, you're likely to take care of them.

Speaker 3 20:19

That's why you respond.

Speaker 2 20:21

That's the whole message Hug your haters. There's no way I'm going to hug all the haters. They're crazy. I had them go. Hey, you guys didn't report about the whole of the floor. I'm like whole of the floor, that seems crazy. It's in the report. I'll say douchebag, never took it down. I'm like dude, you're wrong. But they're still not going to admit it.

Speaker 3 20:44

No.

Speaker 2 20:46

But here's a good thing If you get a couple bad reviews but you have a system set up where you're constantly asking for reviews and if you work with enough clients, they will get buried. It will get buried, yes, like I was going through our um reviews the other day. Look at, look at some. I think we have. We have a list of them, but it's not like huge. But even going through I don't know how many they give on google, maybe 20. They'll show you at one time before you go to the next page. Within that first page we're like I'm looking like two years ago. So we don't get a lot of bad reviews. We really don't. We get some that are like they're all pretty good. We get some that just make no sense at all. Some of the bad reviews are like one star, they go hey, everything was great.

Speaker 3 21:39

Yeah, I see at all. Some of the bad reviews are like one star they go hey, everything was great.

Speaker 2 21:42

Yeah, I see that, and how can you really can't reply back to that, because I have responded back to them like hey, thank you for the review. Uh, the one star is actually bad. Can you change? That to a five and they go oh, I'm sorry, can you do it again? They go yeah, everything was really awesome. They rephrase what they're saying. Still, the one star. I don't know. They don't get it. I'm like, all right.

Speaker 3 22:05

It still says, it was good.

Speaker 2 22:07

Yeah, those are just weird ones that don't show up all that well. We have over 4,000 reviews. I think it's still there for somebody who's involved in real estate to not use us or have us on their list for home inspections or mold testing or VOC testing or turbine inspections, radon tests I don't know if I said that or not. Sewer scope, chimney scopes. Sewer scope, chimney scopes. I think the only home inspection company in the state that does chimney scopes the only one that I I'm aware of, anyone I know of. Yeah, I'm going through that. Have you seen anything less than five stars?

Speaker 3 22:48

not for a long time I'm like 14 weeks ago a lot of our inspectors are all mentioned by like. All of them have been mentioned 14, 17 weeks.

Speaker 2 23:02

Yeah, I see. Maybe Google changed it. I just better look at the lowest ranks. Yeah, some of these just make no sense. Would they get a bad one for somebody who I think it was a walk, was it?

Speaker 3 23:25

final walks or maybe a walk through. That was the one that they changed it three times on us. They did the the schedule and we weren't able to go out because stuff wasn't done first and then I can't remember what all it was, so like it was actually rescheduled three times by them yeah, so I, yes, it's funny, I don't, don't make any sense at all one.

Speaker 2 23:54

One other thing we got, you know and this may have been right at the same time, while I was trying to do that. The one person seemed like they were upset that we did not. It was a new build. They were upset. We didn't beat up the house Like we'd be overly critical of the condition of the house. I mean, do it If you're building a good job. They did a good job, Be glad that Be happy about that.

Speaker 2 24:22

And don't be mad that we're going to make up issues for you. We're not going to. I don't know. I'm not going to lie for any agent. We're not going to lie for the sellers.

Speaker 3 24:29

We're not going to lie for the client.

Speaker 2 24:46

It is what it Like. Yeah, if you want us to lie, then you just need to go somewhere else, which is one reason why I think it's a sign of integrity if an agent or a loan officer anybody has us on their list of recommendations. We're the only company I know of in Ohio that has won Best in the Midwest two years and then won the Consumer Choice Award this year for Columbus Air. So ifus or so if somebody's having some of their recommendation list and I'm like all right, they're a little sus or they haven't heard about us yet, and that needs to be rectified that could be.

Speaker 2 25:08

They have not heard about us. Well, all right. Why would you ever keep us a secret, secret?

Speaker 3 25:14

Well, if they're newer, like if they're a newer agent, I know and there are a lot of newer agents- If you're a newer agent and do your own research, just don't go.

Speaker 2 25:25

who's my teacher, who's my teacher used? Your teacher may have been doing real estate for 15 years and have their favorite guy.

Speaker 3 25:33

They probably do, they all do.

Speaker 2 25:35

And, trust me, inspections are different than they were 15 years ago and they need to stay. Stay up on things. Yes, so they're like yeah, what I'm not finding any bad under the one that matt the man that we would beat up the house. So I think I'm done for this one. But, yeah, you need.

Speaker 3 25:55

You need system to ask for reviews and then you need to reply to the reviews and then we'll seize that.

Speaker 2 26:02

Yeah, always say thank you and then if you get a bad review, take it off a little bit of empathy to where they're going through.

Speaker 2 26:13

If you need, if you need to, or if you're able to or don't, respond for a little bit to your little bit of that empathetic to them hey, I'm sorry you're having this issue. You don't need to admit guilt. No, never admit guilt. Odds are you're not guilty of doing anything wrong. So if they say, hey, sorry, you're having this issue, email me and maybe give an email, go or email me, or here's the link to the form contact us so I can help figure this out for you. Right, that way you take it offline. So they're a little crazy and they just want to try to make it look bad. They're not like little keyboard warriors trying to do their thing.

Speaker 2 26:57

I like that and they can't try to make you look bad, right, because there's no, there's no way there's no win for that, but there is a win if you have a bad review and you're here, you are offering professional offering to help them out, but they just need. They just need to contact you yep that's it, so always respond to your reviews, and that reminds me probably tomorrow morning.

Speaker 2 27:20

I'm going to reply to our latest reviews, which are all happy reviews. I like to hear that. I see it, it was a couple weeks ago and somebody's replied to these. Our website guy may have replied I'll have to find out about it but that one needs to be replied to. There's a couple I need to reply to, but that's about it for this one. All right, thank you everybody. All right, bye-bye, bye.

Speaker 1 27:50

You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast. Until next time. Learn and go do stuff.