Negative feedback in social networking for Estate Agents

Negative feedback is guaranteed to occur in social networking because it is a two way open conversation between the Estate Agent and the buyer/vendor. Instead of running to the hills and shutting down all your social networking activity, agents should see this as a golden opportunity.

Major global, multinational and even national businesses are spending a large amount of money on market research to find out what their customers feel about their brand. Social networking gives Estate Agents the chance, for free, to find out exactly what their customers think, whether it is positive or negative. Both responses should be used to evolve your business and move it forward into a brighter future.

This then begs the question of how Estate Agents should respond to negative feedback on their chosen social network. As always, to look at the type of response we must look at the type of negative feedback that Estate Agents receive:

• Constructive criticism - This is the best criticism an Estate Agent can hope for and can be used by Estate Agents to view the service from a customer's perspective without emotional attachment. Thank the customer for drawing your attention to the error and let them know the steps that the business is taking to correct the error.
• Heated criticism - In this situation the customer has clearly been affected by the fault in the service but they are still in control of their words. Use calm and positive language to assure them that you are either looking into the situation or the changes you have made. Continual contact and information will help to keep this person as a customer.
• Unreasonable criticism - There is no denying that conflict will occur where a customer has become agitated beyond reason. Estate Agents have to handle this type of situation openly. If the customer has an unfounded problem then the public will see that you have tried to fix the problem and side with you.

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, 'Always be positive and do not take any form of online criticism as a personal attack.'

'You cannot use every piece of negativity, but use as much feedback as you can to fix any unforeseen errors. By follow this advice you can become the number one agent in your area.' - Troy Stanley.