What’s the value of your agency’s reputation?

October 5, 2015

It’s been said that your reputation is what people say about you when you are NOT there.

Nowhere is this more true than on the internet.

Having worked in crisis management PR and also being on the other side of the fence as a prying, mischief making journalist I know how things can turn out when something played out in public or on the net is handled badly.

For example does anyone remember the story about the B & B that made national headlines for refusing to give the deposit back to a grieving widow whose husband had just died?

It was catastrophic publicity for the B & B. So much so they have had to change their name. I would have stopped that from becoming a problem before it became national news.

Closer to home recently one of our clients called me on Monday morning saying a rival had posted a damning (and so fictitious that JK Rowling would’ve been proud of it) Google Review about their estate agency.

My client was angry, frustrated and wanted to reply accusing the rival online and going around to his office. Thankfully he called me first and draining all the negative emotion out of the incident I created a response to the review which was factual, balanced and left my client with their great reputation and dignity intact.

We then contacted Google and they removed the review as it was so blatantly malicious and untrue.

Google Reviews are becoming an extremely popular way for people to make decisions on choosing an estate agency to instruct and give feedback on the services they have then received. Ignore this at your peril.

One of the PR packages we offer includes something called PRICE. It stands for Public Relations in Case of Emergency.

It does what it says on the tin. For just £20 per month (based on a 12 month booking) we offer the service. It’s kind of like an insurance policy which covers your businesses’ reputation.

If you are interested in hearing more about our PRICE service drop me an email at Jerry@propertyprexpert.co.uk.

A real easy (and free) way to keep tabs on what might be being said about your agency online is to create a simple Google Alert. It takes two minutes to do but can give you the heads up if someone mentions you online and Google finds it.

Thanks for reading and here’s to your next instruction.

Jerry

Alex Evans

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