Testimonials for Realtors: Boost Your Sales with This Strategy

Why You Need Testimonials as a Real Estate Agent

Testimonials are experiences from your happy customers. They can be in a text, video, audio or other form (only your creativity is the limit).

Testimonials are a form of social proof, and a great way to increase trust between you and your potential clients.

The question why you need testimonials as a real estate agent is quite rhetoric, as there is no customer service profession where testimonials would not be needed!

However, let me illustrate a few reasons for why you, a realtor, should use testimonials as part of your marketing efforts.

1. Realtors Are A Distrusted Profession

American consumers don’t like realtors.

Yeah, I know that’s a big statement. But let me back it up.

In Purplebrick’s survey, real estate agents ranked as least trustworthy professionals together with journalists.

Another survey by Choice Home Warranty found that 67.5% of American consumers don’t trust realtors, and in the age group of 18-24 year-olds the number was even higher: 73%.

Additionally, when you go to the question-and-answer community platform Quora, you can see that people ask following questions:

“How can I trust a real estate agent?”

“Why most of people don’t trust real estate agents when buying their first house?”

“How can you tell if a real estate agent is reliable?”

2. Home Buying Process Is Critical for Your Clients

Buying a home is one of the most important decisions in our lives.

If something goes wrong, the house is not in a good condition, or the realtor takes too much money compared to the true value of the house, it can have a very destructive impact on the house owner’s life and finances.

No wonder that people want to trust the person who sells their home.

Especially first home buyers can be quite cautious, as can be seen from the surveys and Quora questions.

3. Your happy customers are the most valuable advocates for your business

Luckily, there is an easy solution for both of the above problems = your previous customers’ testimonials.

Nothing creates trust as well as testimonials from previous customers who are able to tell that you were professional and trustworthy, and that the entire process went smoothly.

Other people are more likely to believe the words of actual customers than what you say in advertisements and other branded content.

The phenomenon is based on social proof, a psychological phenomenon that makes people trust other people’s judgment and follow each other in new situations.

Samantha Odo works at PreCondo and has noticed great benefits from collecting testimonials from existing customers.

First, it has made us better at what we do. By addressing the problems mentioned in reviews, we have been able to improve our clients’ experience.

Secondly, we have helped build our reputation within the real estate industry. This has resulted in an increase in client enquiries and sales.

Thirdly, this practice has helped create a culture of openness and client-centeredness within PreCondo. We believe that listening to our clients and learning from them is what makes us unique in today’s competitive real estate market.

Samantha Odo, Real Estate Sales Representative & Montreal Division Manager @PreCondo

How to Get and Make Customer Testimonials

Now you know that testimonials are essential. They help people realize the benefits of hiring a real estate agent.

But how do you get them?

1. Be Worthy of Praise

The first rule to getting testimonials is to be worth it.

You can’t expect your customers to tell how much they trust you and how well the house buying process went if that is not true.

A great way to find out if your customers are happy is to ask for feedback. If the feedback is positive, there is a good chance that they would be willing to give a testimonial as well.

2. Ask

You’ll never get testimonials if you don’t ask.

That’s also something the CEO of luxury real estate company Rubyhome’s CEO Tony Mariotti has noticed.

We actively collect customer reviews as they are critical in the real estate sector.

We use platforms like Zillow and Google Reviews to gather feedback from our clients.

Tony Mariotti, CEO @RubyHome

Most of the time happy home owners are more than willing to advocate for your great service.

I recommend you do this face-to-face on the same day as you close the deal, or perhaps a few days later on the phone. 

Another option is to ask via text message or email. This option is less personal, so pay close attention to how you formulate your request. It must be a great message if your customers take time from their day to do this for you.

Remember to use a review request template which also simultaneously asks for the marketing permission!

Great verbal comments or excel file filled with great reviews copy-pasted from your email isn’t worth anything.

Sometimes you could offer a small incentive. But bear in mind that this might come across as bribing and immediately reduce the authenticity of the testimonial.

3. Choose The Medium

As stated before, testimonials come in different forms.

Are you looking for a brief written review, or perhaps a video testimonial? Do you want pictures of your satisfied customers?

When you have decided on the type of testimonial, you can think whether you need e.g. a professional photographer or videographer.

Most of the time, a DIY video testimonial is enough.

4. Questions to Ask 

What kind of questions should you ask from the clients in a testimonial?

If you request a written testimonial, I recommend you only ask one question. Otherwise the customers might feel overwhelmed. 

This one question could be something like: “How would you describe the process and experience with our team?”

If you make a video, you can interview the customers a bit further to get more content and ease the tension. This way you can also lead the customer on a little bit and get the kind of content that you want.

Ideas for questions:

1. Why did you choose our real estate business to cooperate with you?
2. How did you find the initial phone call with us?
3. How would you describe the whole process?
4. What was the customer service like?
5. How would you describe your realtor in a few words?
6. Were you confident in our real estate expertise?
7. Were you able to get your dream home?
8. How was the closing process?
9. Would you recommend our services to others?

Side note: make sure that the people are not just answering “Yes” or “No” to the questions. For some people, it comes naturally to talk about their experience, while others need more encouragement and instructions.

5. Make It Quick and Easy

Realistically speaking, no one is going to spend a lot of time on writing a testimonial.

If you want to get them from customers, you need to make it extremely easy.

Ask them within a timely manner after the closing date as they’ve just had a wonderful experience with you.

This is especially important if you are asking for written testimonials. You can make a video quite easily during a meeting with your clients, but making them write a testimonial while you hover over them is an awkward situation where everyone feels slightly uncomfortable.

So do this:

1. When you meet the client, give them a heads up about an upcoming feedback survey and testimonial request.
2. Make a feedback survey with Trustmary and send it to your client via email.
3. The client gives feedback, and the survey will ask them to submit a public testimonial as well.
4. Your client can formulate the testimonial whenever they have a good moment for it, and when they submit it, it goes straight to your Trustmary dashboard.

Here you go! Easy for everyone involved!

Read more about getting testimonials from customers and formulating the perfect request.

6. Remember to Make Use of Collected Testimonials

After you have your testimonials or video testimonials collected, it’s time to figure out how to use them.

Featuring testimonials on your website and social media is a good start. 

When a prospective customer lands on your website or Facebook (or any social media) page, they will immediately see the recommendations from previous customers.

When you use a testimonial tool like Trustmary, you can easily manage all the testimonials from one place and choose which ones you want to present in which places.

You also get dynamic testimonial widgets that elevate your website overall!

Typical places for testimonials on the website are a separate testimonial page, or featuring them on your landing page with widgets.

Read more about how to use testimonials in marketing.

Add Testimonials to Website – from All Sources!

Adding all real estate reviews to website can feel like a daunting task.

Luckily, this can be done in mere minutes.

Everyone in the real estate industry should add testimonials and reviews to their website as well to boost contact requests from potential customers.

Steps to Add Testimonials to Website – Stress Free

1. Log into Trustmary
2. Import 3rd party reviews and testimonials (works manually as well!)
3. Create a review widget
4. Log into CMS
5. Copy-paste the embed code to your website where you’d like to add social proof (a good place is on your front page)
6. Save changes

There you go. We even have a more thorough step-by-step guide for newbies in case you need more help.

Get started right away by typing your Google My Business location below to import your Google reviews

Examples of Testimonials in Real Estate

1. Written Testimonial

This written testimonial from Marsden Real Estate is a great example of a testimonial for a realtor.

As a title, the company uses a quote from the testimonial. The client’s full name is given, which adds credibility.

The testimonial has an emotional impact, as the client speaks about the dream him and his wife had together.

After that he goes to describe how their realtor took care of the entire process and enabled them to purchase their dream home.

The layout of the testimonial has been made to fit the overall style of the website.

2. Video Testimonial

In this example, a young couple speaks on a video about how great their home buying process was with the realtor.

The video is most likely recorded by the realtor and it is not super polished, which makes it even more authentic.

You could post this kind of testimonial video on your social media or feature on your website. You could also pick out snippets from it and make them into quotes, which you can use in different places.

Imagine a picture where the couple signs the papers and there is a quote “I highly recommend Monica. I don’t think we would have been able to do this through a different realtor!”

Wouldn’t that be just perfect for a poster or an Instagram post?

3. Audio Testimonials

Joe Hayden Real Estate Team features audio testimonials on their customer review page. The testimonials are followed with more information about the business and call to action to contact the team.

Seems like the testimonials are made by interviewing the customers on the phone. It gives a very authentic touch to the testimonials.

Click on the picture to listen to the testimonials on the original page.

Conclusion

As a realtor, you need client testimonials to show that you are a trusted professional.

Customer testimonials are much more effective than your own content and advertisements.

In order to collect testimonials, you need to provide unmatched customer service so that your clients are willing to recommend you.

The easiest way to collect written as well as video testimonials is Trustmary’s testimonial software.

Try today and elevate your real estate agent reputation!

Further Reading

To learn more about testimonials and video testimonials, see our blogs on the topic:

• How to Get Testimonials From Customers (With 7 Examples)
• How To Use Testimonials in Marketing
• The Definitive Guide to Creating and Utilizing Video Testimonials
• Video Testimonials App: 5-Step Guide to Set It Up

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