As online reviews increase in popularity, your estate sale company’s reviews have a ripple effect that can determines your company’s reputation and continuity in the industry.
It’s easy to find online negative reviews for estate sale companies. While we all try to focus on the positive side of things, it’s important to address why this happens, and what your estate sale business can do about it.
Business Reviews and Reputation
In an unregulated industry such as estate sales, word-of-mouth references are extremely important. Online reviews are exactly that, but they are online for everyone to see including potential clients looking to hire an estate sale company.
Estate sale business reviews online only tell one side of the story, therefore it’s important to understand the dynamic of estate sales and all the people involved in the process before making a final decision when selecting an estate sale professional.
About the Estate Sale Business
As an estate sale professional, you work with many people. Referring sources such as real estate agents, funeral homes, attorneys, and direct clients.
You serve the public by selling items to shoppers that frequent your estate sales. Some shoppers are consistent, but on any given day, depending on the area they’re in, you will get new shoppers from the neighboring areas.
It’s not rare to have upset neighbors when an estate sale is held. Whether it’s the amount of traffic in the area an estate sale creates, cars blocking driveways, or upsetting neighbors while they’re waiting to enter an estate sale.
Angry family members are also part of the mix. After the death of a loved one, there are many family feuds that occur. If one family member holds the sale, and another is upset, they can retaliate by leaving an estate sale business review that affects your company’s reputation.
As an estate sale professional , you have many people to satisfy, and while many do their best to keep everyone happy, it’s virtually impossible to satisfy all the people involved at all times.
Common Estate Sale Company Reviews
Experienced estate sale professionals will rarely have negative reviews from clients they held a sale for, but even some of the best companies out there will get a review from a dissatisfied shopper.
The most common estate sale negative reviews you’ll see will involve pricing. Estate sale shoppers are quite competitive, and always looking for the best deal. Emotions run high if they don’t get what they want, at the price they expect to pay. They often will take to online reviews and bash the company’s reputation and experience in pricing items.
Managing Estate Sale Online Reviews
Reviews are considered valuable when they are honest. As a business owner, you shouldn’t offer an incentive in exchange for a review.
There are many platforms that allow the public to leave reviews. Each platform has different guidelines and rules that must be followed, but almost all platforms will allow an estate sale company to respond.
Popular Online Review Sites
Google Business Reviews
Estate sale business reviews left on Google do provide valuable information about your business to potential customers. These reviews show up near your listing on Google maps and when people search for your services in the local area. You can help, by increasing your positive reviews on Google.
It’s a no-brainer. People will turn to Google first when they need help finding an estate sale company in the local area. Getting reviews on Google will boost your search result rankings and with good reviews, it will send customers straight to you.
Make sure you have a verified business listing with Google. Only verified businesses can manage and reply to reviews.
Remind clients, referring sources, and customers to leave reviews on Google for you. Once you have a verified listing, you can create a short URL to share in emails, text messages, or add it as a link to your website.
When a review is left, you’ll receive a notification. Keep your listing updated, and always respond to the reviews, whether it’s positive or negative.
If a review violates Google policies such as abusive, threatening, use bad language, and many other reasons. You can quickly flag it for removal.
Google partners with many other review sites. They will grab your rating from Facebook, Yelp, Manta, and other listing sites to display on your Google Business Listing, so make sure your rating remains positive across the web. You can easily do this by increasing the number of positive reviews you get.
Facebook Business Reviews
Facebook reviews are also important and quite popular. Not everyone has a Google account to leave a review on a Google business listing, but almost everyone has a Facebook account making it quick and easy to leave a rating and a descriptive review about their experience.
Always respond to reviews, whether they’re positive or not. Do it as quickly as possible, so potential readers can get both sides of the story.
If you receive a disrespectful, negative or spam review, you can’t simply delete it. You can, however, report it, and if it doesn’t adhere to Facebook’s community standards, the Facebook team will remove it.
To report a review, simply go to the review and click on the menu arrow (top right-hand corner), click on “report post”, and follow Facebook’s instructions.
Don’t want Facebook business reviews on? No problem. Luckily Facebook has allowed businesses to enable or disable the reviews tab from their business page. You can turn it on or off whenever you like.
How to Enable or Disable Reviews on Your Facebook Business Page:
- Go to your Facebook business page.
- Click “Settings” at the top of your Page.
- Go to “Edit Page” in the left column.
- Scroll down to the “Reviews” tab.
- Click “Settings” next to the Reviews Section.
- Move the slider from On to Off or vice versa.
- Click “Save”.
Online reviews aren’t always verified or fair and as an estate sale business owner, your only defense is to respond and increase positive reviews by requesting them from customers.
If you choose to disable the reviews feature from your Facebook Business page, users can no longer see the reviews tab to leave, or read reviews, but they can still leave you a review on other platforms such as Google or Yelp.
Yelp Reviews
Google business will also grab your rating from yelp and display it near your listing when people search for your services in the local area.
You can add, edit or manage your listing information and reviews from the Yelp for Business Owners platform.
One of the biggest frustrations among businesses is yelp reviews. Like all platforms, you can respond to reviews, report spam or disrespectful reviews, but that’s not where the source of frustration comes from.
Yelp is the only platform that uses a filter. Companies get frustrated because on many occasions a valid positive review is hidden, while a negative one is displayed. It’s a filter that uses various checks and balances to decide whether a review is displayed or hidden, and there isn’t anything that can be done about it.
Whether you like yelp or not, it’s one of the most popular review sites out there. The Yelp reviewers are notorious for being difficult to please. While it’s a great idea to ask for reviews, I would direct clients to Google and Facebook before I would send them to yelp.
Best methods to follow with yelp is the same as the others, always show your professional side by responding to positive reviews, and telling your side of the story or apologizing by responding to negative reviews.
EstateSales.org Reviews
Registered estate sale companies on EstateSales.org have the ability to manually add reviews directly to their profile page through their account settings area under the “Testimonials” subsection. These differ from other platforms such as Yelp, Google and Facebook, because they’re not entered by the consumer. After you complete an estate sale, ask your client to provide you with a written testimonial (a simple email or text message works great), and then simply copy and paste it into your testimonials section on EstateSales.org.
On EstateSales.org, we place you in full control of your testimonials because we realize that some people leave unfair or even completely fake negative reviews that can be damaging to your reputation.
Testimonials of your business on EstateSales.org are displayed prominently on your company’s profile page which is searchable via our website.
Business Reviews Statistics
Here are some statistics that highlight the importance of online reviews. These statistics should help drive your decision to increase your positive estate sale business reviews online.
- 88% of consumers incorporate online reviews into their purchasing decisions
- 92% of consumers read online reviews.
- 75% of consumers would choose a business that has positive reviews.
- 73% of consumers only need about 6 reviews in order to form an opinion about your business.
Do your part by giving the consumers the reviews they need to make a decision about hiring you for an estate sale.
Increase Positive Estate Sale Reviews
Now that you know how important reviews are. Here are a few things you can do to increase the reviews your estate sale business receives.
Part of marketing your estate sale business also involves creating a process that allows customers to give you a positive referral.
- If you have a website, add a testimonial page where you can add images of reviews left on postcards by customers, along with links to your various listings where they can leave you a review online. Display your positive reviews on this page for potential clients to see.
- Your estate sale email marketing campaign should also include links to your various listing sites where customers can leave you reviews. You have a following of shoppers that love your estate sales, they say it directly to you every time they shop. Make it easy for them to tell everyone else by sending them directly to your online listing.
- If you use social media marketing to advertise estate sales, include posts that ask your followers to leave you a review directly on your listings by providing a link.
- Save the links to your listings on your phone or iPad, you can quickly email, or text those links to someone that just complimented your beautifully staged estate sale and asking them to leave you a positive review.
- Have an iPad near the register with a link to your Google business listing, if someone compliments your services, quickly ask them to click the link and leave you a review.
- Send a postcard with your final payout letter to the client where they can hand fill out a testimonial you can later scan and add to your website page or a short link to a listing where you’d like than to leave a positive review.
- Sign up with third-party services that increase your positive reviews by automating all the steps mentioned above via email, text, etc. A quick online search will lead to many services you can decide on.
The goal is to encourage online reviews from your customers that will make your business shine.
- Simply ask for them
- Create fun incentives and notifications
- Make it easy for them
- Use social media
- Publish and highlight the reviews
- Did we mention “MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM”
Estate Sale Company Reviews – In Summary
There are many listing sites that allow for customer reviews. These sites have the power to drive up search engine results.
As an estate sale business, reviews have a huge effect on a potential client’s first impression of you. If you get a negative review, don’t stress about it, but rather deal with it.
Always respond to negative and positive reviews to show you are active in your business. You will never make everyone happy. Respond quickly and effectively.
Always report disrespectful, hateful, or abusive reviews to the platforms they’re left on.
Online marketers prefer to direct reviewers to Google instead of relying on third-party sites. You should consider doing the same.
The estate sale business is a service industry that services local areas. A local business listing on Google can increase the number of estate sales leads you will receive.
Focus your efforts on increasing those Google positive reviews as much as you can.
At EstateSales.org we take pride in matching potential clients with estate sale professionals nationwide. We also drive traffic to your active estate sales by using advanced marketing methods to advertise your upcoming sales.
Listing your business on our site allows you to add a link to your website. Your website is a hub that should highlight your services, sales, and testimonials.
Link directly to your company profile page on EstateSales.org. This will give potential clients to review your prior experience. We’d love to hear what you think. Leave us a comment below. How do you feel about online reviews and what is your favorite platform for online estate sale business reviews?
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