The Property Franchise Group (TPFG) has struck an agreement with View Agents to provide their high street branches with a management tool specifically created for estate agents.

View Agents is based in the UK and focuses on helping estate agents improve and maintain their online reputation.

Domenic Versace, CEO View Agents, said: “We are excited to have TPFG on board, we give TPFG agents the opportunity to take control of their online reputation and reviews.”

A big factor in growing an estate agency’s online reputation is reviews, according to Versace.

He continued: If you think that reviews will get lost in all the internet noise, you’ll need to think again.

“91% of people regularly or occasionally read reviews. 84% trust them as much as a personal recommendation, whilst 68% will form an opinion about your business after reading one to six reviews.

“We have all personally experienced how reviews can influence our decision-making, this is no different when hiring an estate agent. View Agents assists TPFG agents to manage & grow their online reputation, giving them a competitive edge.”

View Agents will be supplying an array of reputation management tools to more than 220 TPFG branches.

Kate Randall, group marketing director at TPFG, commented: “TPFG branches can view their aggregated reviews from multiple popular review platforms, access their reputation and review data/analytics, giving them the ability to benchmark their performance with local competitors.

“We believe that review and reputation management is essential for any successful consumer-facing business, especially an estate agency.

“One of the reasons we chose View Agents is they understand how important reputation is to estate agencies and their single dashboard makes it easy for us to manage our reviews from popular review platforms.”

Reflecting on the new partnership, Simon Whale of Kerfuffle commented “Reputation always has been, always will be the one of the most important traits that any business should protect and nurture, and yet the whole review scene has not been delivering as its such a fragmented experience.  Business owners, marketing managers have continually been frustrated at the daily occurrent that in terms of how the public see you, you can be a hero on Facebook, a villain on Google  and everywhere in between with the other review sites they use.

“Ultimately it doesn’t matter which review site you might be focussing your business on as your ‘go to’ option, ultimately unless 100% of your potential clients are also going there then you’re in danger of being an Ostrich and sticking your head in the sand & ignoring what’s going on about you. Its akin to me faced with the prospect of eating five bits of fruit a day to vaguely stay healthy, just because I wish it wasn’t so doesn’t make it wrong.

“I was stunned talking to a number of agents on this subject how many were unaware of some of the really negative sentiment that was listed against their businesses. To now have that single view on how you’re doing on one dashboard gives you the ability to manage your reputation properly.

“Although its only just hit the market, winning business like The Property Franchise Group shows real intent and shows to me they should be on most agents one to watch list.”