Seth Godin posted another great blog post this morning titled, “We’re the same, we’re the same, we’re …” He says:
Take a look at just about any industry with many competitors–colleges, hotels, sedans, accounting firms (especially accounting firms)…
The websites bend over backwards to be just like all the others. You can’t identify one hotel website from another if you delete the name of the hotel (unless there’s a beach or a snow-capped mountain in the background).
Sometimes, we try so hard to fit in we give consumers no choice but to seek out the cheapest. After all, if everything is the same, why not buy what’s cheap and close?
How about a site that says, “Here’s why we’re different.” And means it.
Add another look alike industry to the list — real estate firms. I was doing a survey of local search results for Houston real estate firms for a friend and I was struck by how difficult it would be for a potential client to make a choice.
Obviously none of the listed real estate firms is making an effort to ask clients for online reviews because there are only one or two reviews for any firm. Don’t any of these firms want to stand out from the competition? Don’t any of them have more than one or two satisfied clients?
Potential clients are looking for online referrals, recommendations, and reviews from their peers. Most surveys find that about 70% of Web users find these online reviews to be useful in making a decision. Wouldn’t you think that a well-managed real estate firm would have implemented a program to ask satisfied clients for online recommendations? Do these results indicate that these firms are not well-managed? You be the judge!
If you operate a well-managed business and would like to stand out from the competition by getting customer referrals and recommendations working for you, Rust Reviews can help you do it. Contact us to learn more!
