Month: December 2018

4 Ways to Handle a Negative Yelp Review

Marci Sepulveda Leave a comment

Despite your best efforts, it’s possible to receive a less-than-stellar review on Yelp and other social media platforms. While about 79 percent of the reviews on Yelp receive three stars or more, every business will likely receive negative feedback at some point because it’s impossible to please 100 percent of the people you deal with 100 percent of the time.

With this knowledge in mind there are ways to boost your online reputation and make sure that your Yelp profile is working for you and not against you. In this blog we’ll cover the four ways to handle a negative Yelp review.

Start with Great Customer Service

Most real estate agents place an emphasis on making sure their clients feel great before they walk out the door. But in this age of social media, business owners should always treat their customers as if they were newspaper reporters. Anything you say or that your customers observe while they’re working with you can end up online.

Stay Cool if You Read a Negative Review

If you find yourself getting too emotional about your reviews, you may not be the best person to respond to an upset customer. Appoint a trusted admin or another agent at your brokerage to manage your online reviews. Also, if you see a negative review written by someone without a photo and no friends, it may not be worth losing sleep over. Consumers on Yelp naturally gravitate to reviewers who have established presences on Yelp.

Be Diplomatic

When it’s time to respond to a critical reviewer, use Yelp’s free review response tools to join the conversation about your business. You can respond privately or publicly but remember to always take the high road when it comes to your customers and your reputation. If you feel like a review violates Yelp’s terms of service, you can flag it for evaluation by Yelp’s user support team.

Implement Feedback

Online reviews can help you figure out what you’re doing well and what you can improve upon. Some business owners discuss Yelp reviews with their employees during staff meetings and implement corrective measures according to the feedback they receive.

If you work hard at customer service and promote a positive image of your business, many of the reviews you will receive will be positive. Over time, all of the positive reviews become like an online book of testimonials for your business. You can send new customers to your Yelp page so they can learn more about the great service they will receive if they choose you as their representative.

Developing your Yelp profile with positive reviews of your services is a great way to improve your referral sources online. To learn more, start your free seven-day free trial of AgentEDU and watch the full Yelp For Your Real Estate Business course.

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AgentEDU® is a platform where agents at every level can come to watch 10-minute video courses for the many situations that successful agents must master. From essential to advanced level and everything in between, AgentEDU® courses help agents become top producers with increased earnings and a plan for continued growth. For a 7-day free trial sign up here.

AgentEDU® is an Agent Publishing brand. For nearly two decades, Agent Publishing has been committed to providing residential real estate professionals with the information and training required to build successful and meaningful careers in their local markets. Agent Publishing’s influence extends to every career stage and reaches agents across print, digital, events and online learning.

Manage Your Real Estate Team with Tuckman Stages

Marci Sepulveda Leave a comment

You should not expect your team to function as a well-oiled machine from the start. Teams go through stages as they learn to work together, an understanding of the growth patterns of a typical team will help you implement best practices to help them achieve.

“Tuckman’s Stages” summarizes the research Bruce Tuckman did on team dynamics back in the 1960s. This team research is a classic model of understanding. The five stages Tuckman identified are called forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

In this blog post, we’ll walk through each stage so you can recognize it in your own teams and teach as it happens.

Stage 1: Forming

In the forming stage, team members are introduced, and they share information about themselves and form first impressions about each other. They learn about the project they will be working on, discuss objectives and goals and start to think about what role they will play on the team.

As the team leader, this stage provides you an opportunity to be very clear about your goals and provide direction about the work the team will do. You can help the team determine roles and responsibilities and guide initial interactions and preparations.

Stage 2: Storming

The second stage, storming, is an unavoidable transitional stage as team members begin to work together. Team members may compete with each other and varying opinions may cause conflict within the team. The team leader’s guidance is still important in this stage – you can help your hires solve problems, stick to roles and remind them how to function independently and as a team.

Your leadership in this stage can also help team members remain respectful and ensure that all voices are heard. As the team becomes more accepting of their own and recognizes the value of individual contributions, your involvement can lessen. Keep in mind that if you have younger team members or professionally immature hires, this stage can last longer.

Stage 3: Norming

In the norming stage, team members begin to work more effectively together. Individual goals are left behind for the good of the project. Each team member’s ideas should be heard and valued.

As roles are accepted and plans are implemented, working together feels more natural. Minor conflicts can be resolved and team members seek out each other’s opinions. The work gets done and the project moves forward, without as much participation from you.

Stage 4: Performing

In the performing stage, teams are functioning at a very high level. The focus is on collaboration to reach the team goal. Team members trust each other. As a team leader, your goal is to help your team get to the performing stage, a key plateau for a high functioning team. Teams in this stage can make decisions together and solve conflicts easily and effectively.

The team will be able to agree on changing processes if needed and won’t need to rely on the team leader for day-to-day work. As the team leader, you’ll continue to monitor productivity and team functionality, spotting breaks in the workflow if someone starts to work independently or if a new member joins the team.

Stage 5: Adjourning

In the adjourning stage the project goal comes to an end and the cycle gets ready to start with new goals and maybe new people. Your team members may move on to new projects together or with different team members.

This stage is an opportunity for you as the team leader to evaluate the team as you move into new collaborative stages. Review lessons learned as a way to introduce new projects and contribute to organizational growth. This stage also provides an opportunity to celebrate the team’s success.

Managing a team comes more intuitively to some than to others. To reach your goals and avoid problems, take management seriously and understand that what you do as team leader sets the tone for productivity and success. And to learn more about how to effectively and efficiently manage your real estate team this year and beyond, start your seven-day free trial of AgentEDU® today and begin with the Team Building track.

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AgentEDU® is a platform where agents at every level can come to watch 10-minute video courses for the many situations that successful agents must master. From essential to advanced level and everything in between, AgentEDU® courses help agents become top producers with increased earnings and a plan for continued growth. For a 7-day free trial sign up here.

AgentEDU® is an Agent Publishing brand. For nearly two decades, Agent Publishing has been committed to providing residential real estate professionals with the information and training required to build successful and meaningful careers in their local markets. Agent Publishing’s influence extends to every career stage and reaches agents across print, digital, events and online learning.