“There is another flaw in the agentrankings.com etc. group you mentioned. You do not actually have to do business with the agent to make a comment. Top Producers…should be able to generate business from their reputation without having to pay for it.”

With respect to AgentRank.com, wrong on both accounts. Here’s why:

1) AgentRank does not accept anonymous comments or reviews. We’ll soon accept unsolicited reviews, but not before we finish building a system to ensure they are authentic.
2) Any leads generated from agent profiles are passed directly to the agent without cost.

Bob and I wanted to make sure you knew that our program does NOT allow our members to cherry pick which clients receive the survey.

Any participant has 15 days from the date of the closing to provide the contact information of their client to receive the automatically e-mailed survey. In fact, if the participant says they do not have the e-mail address for the client, we ask for a physical mailing address and mail them a hardcopy survey. And so far, more than 2,100 clients have submitted surveys. If the participant does not provide the required information within 15 days, they are automatically removed from the program.

Our Client Experience Rating was established to be an all-or-none system that does not allow “selective opt-out.” Either all results are published or none are. If a participant opts-out for a period, the previous surveys are maintained and will still be included if they later choose to opt back in.

There is obviously an aspect of competition among the participants so prospective clients will likely look for REALTORS® who have ratings and comments posted to know more about the person they are hiring to help them with what is likely the biggest financial transaction of their life.

The integrity of the Client Experience Rating system is dependent upon transparency, which I think anyone who has followed HAR will agree has always been our hallmark.

We always enjoy reading your posts and just wanted to make certain that you and your readers knew that the system does have extensive rules and guidelines to prevent the type of situation you suggested in your post.

Thanks, and keep up the great coverage.

Matt Burrus
Chief Communications Officer
Houston Association of REALTORS®

If people simply ask themselves, “What do I think when I see reviews on the hotels, airlines, restaurants I am considering spending valuable time and resources on?” More important, are the ones I have not yet experienced and the ones that I do not have a personal referral for.

People are smart and getting better informed by the moment. Again, ask yourself, “Do I scan the reviews and choose which ones are legit and which ones are not?” Of course we do. We dismiss the unreasonable entries and skip them. But, if we believe a negative review… I know what I do. I pick something else and never think about it again.

I just booked a trip through expedia.com. It was a package (air, hotel, car) for an upcoming conference in May. The reviews of the hotels in particular made a big difference in my decision. I chose the Westin near the airport. Easy reach to everywhere I want to go. Free internet. Free parking. Great style. Starwood points. And, excellent, intelligent and thoughtful reviews that I believed were true. If made a difference and influenced me for sure.

Thanks for the food for thought. This train has already left the station. You have painted the honest appraisal of what our real estate industry must to as a whole to gain credibility within people’s minds.

- Peter R

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of mediocrity in the real estate business. Sorry, there just is. While I totally agree with what Redfin is doing is the right thing to do, I highly doubt that many companies will dive in head first with something like this. The ones that do will be yet another step ahead in the future.

Actually the group that has been at it the longest doing it the right way is QSC(Quality Service Certified). They not only require a participating agent to share every rating, they encourage every member to go through quality service training to help agents understand what world class service looks like.

Their system benchmarks satisfaction rankings against your office, brokerage, franchise and even the entire database of 50,000+ agents.

What they find is that strong top producing agents participate first and they bring along the rest of the agents following adoption trends similar to any other real estate technology.

There is another flaw in the agentrankings.com etc. group you mentioned. You do not actually have to do business with the agent to make a comment. Why should a consumer believe comments from someone who did not do business with the client. They are simply another method for generating leads. It upsets me to think third parties are playing off strong reputations of agents and selling them leads from it. Top Producers work hard to garner a strong reputation. They should be able to generate business from their reputation without having to pay for it.

We published a white paper a few months ago on the topic of Reputation Marketing. Readers can feel free to download it at waves.wavgroup.com and learn more about how to take control of marketing your strong reputation.