A new ratings and review site planning to challenge the so far all-reigning power of allAgents, launches today in test mode.
According to CEO of raterAgent Mal McCallion, the new site has the express intention of “improving the quality image of estate agency as an industry”.
The site is free – but only up to a point – for estate agents.
The launch is also against a background of portal upheaval and agents not necessarily wanting to be listed automatically online, with a number demanding to be taken off, for example, Houser.
However, raterAgent insists it will be very different, totally transparent, and where it can be, entirely pro-agent.
McCallion said: “All of the written reviews on the site will be checked by our team of moderators.
“We are an independent site which agents can feel confident referring their clients to, for reviews of themselves and their staff, as their honest and genuine ratings will not be overshadowed by fake ones of, or by, their competitors.”
Launched in ‘beta’ testing mode today, agents can go and find their listing and check their profiles. McCallion says the intention is for every agent to be able to prove to the public the quality of their service.
He said: “Too often the debate is stuck on price – low or no commission rates, tiny up-front fees – meaning that the quality of service that is actually provided in return is tremendously hard to talk about and prove.
“raterAgent will help agents to get past this one-dimensional conversation by enabling potential clients to see exactly what current and past clients of the agent really think of their service.
“We’re a ‘freemium’ service where you can get lots of great features for free – ratings and reviews, review verification, vendor leads, branch claiming, and answering consumer questions.
“Where we do charge, it’s an almost nominal fee of £30 per branch per month, and in return we’ll do even more work for you – emailing you reviews rather than you having to monitor them, enabling you to have a ‘right of reply’ at the same time as their publication, supplying a marketing pack and links, allowing you to further brand your raterAgent page and more.”
The site will remain in ‘beta’ testing before launching fully in March. Agents can get the enhanced benefits with nearly 50% off in this period by signing up now.
Regarding the long-term aim of raterAgent, McCallion said: “It may not be fashionable to talk about helping improve the overall quality of the industry – all the noise seems to be about price these days – but that’s just what we’re about.
“If people can see an agent taking care of their clients, proving their quality of service and openly encouraging reviews, good or bad, to an independent, dedicated industry site, then that is an agent that many, many are going to choose, with cost a secondary consideration to value for money.
“Once clients see what good-quality estate agency achieves – higher sale prices or rents, smoother process, completions within the right timescales – they’re going to go to those that provide it, time and again. That means that poorer service will have to improve to compete.
“There’s a place for agents to challenge each other on all areas – price, people, local knowledge – but too often the ability to independently showcase quality as an attribute has been almost impossible. raterAgent solves this for good.”
If your branch details are not on www.rateragent.co.uk or are incorrect, you can email agency@rateragent.co.uk or call 0330 111 9196.
Comments (16)
I am new to this industry and obviously like to keep up to date with the stories and concerns of the people in the industry and so read these stories (and more importantly the comments) as much as possible.
I have worked for a number of consumer facing businesses and have learned that there is only one way to do reviews properly. This is not the way. How do their own moderators know if a review is genuine or not? You can't set up a review site and ask your (potentially) paying clients to confirm each review as genuine or not. No-one has time for this and why should they have to clear their name (if negative) every time someone leaves a negative review. It is a flawed concept. If an agent gets asked if a negative review is genuine do they really think that the agent will confirm it as a genuine customer?
The only way to do it is for the agent to send a review request to their customers (then you KNOW they are all genuine) and publish those reviews. It basically eradicates any kind of fake review claims as only customers who have dealt with an agent will get a request. There is a number of companies that automate this process for you (I don't work for one) and I can point anyone in the direction of the best. We use post transaction review requests and get a conversion rate of over 80%.
Agents need to take reviews into their own hands so that they can be sure that what consumers are seeing is a true reflection of the level of service they provide. You can then provide all these review sites with accurate, independent review data.
Oh dear – this site is simply the gift that keeps on giving! Heralding itself PRE-LAUNCH on Tw@tter and Facebook as ""…the UK's most trustworthy, dedicated estate agent review website" is bad enough. It then states "Discover the best local estate agents to you with raterAgent." SO… Day#1 arrives and I looks to see what's occurring on the site – it would be rude not to! TEN reviews seem to have been posted. The site displays the "top 25 highest rated branches" – so places #11 to #s5 are simply allocated by the alphabetically (or numerically, in this case…) first Agents in the website's "database". Back to this "database" in a moment – let's keep to the posted "reviews". 'Top of the shop' is a 5-star rared, Leeds-based company whose name begins with the letter 'A' – as is positions 2 & 3; 4th & 5th on the list are 'B'-initialled Agents… are you seeing a pattern forming here? ALL have 5 gold stars (except poor 10th place who could only muster three stars…). But here's the thing – open the page for 5-star "Highest-Rated" Agent and you find… NO REVIEWS. Nil. Nada. Zilch. The Review Trophy Cupboard is as bare as PortalPerson's repertoire of compliments. Now Agent #
2 and Agent #3 (same Agent, different branch location) did better with ONE 5* review each. FROM THE SAME PERSON. REVIEWING THE SAME STAFF MEMBER. Someone talk me through THAT, please…? Gets better – Agent #5 gets a 5* from who appears to be THE SAME 'CUSTOMER' as that who raves about Agents 2 and 3… Same person "reviewing" Agents in 4th and 8th positions… 'Rater' for the Agent in position #9 didn't even leave a written review… and poor old 3* 'Agent #10' – well… same bloke who crowed over Agents #4 and #8 (both based in Cambridge) had a right old moan about this WEST YORKSHIRE-based company who he says didn't put in enough effort to sell two properties for him during the depths of the recession! REAL REVIEWS????? TRUSTWORTHY??? SO… back to the "database" bit. The website crows "raterAgent has information on every estate agent branch in the UK*." Sounds great. I tried the town my branch is located. I am one of 7 in the town – 6 Independents with 1 to 30 branches, and one LSL-branded Agency . This is what I got: "Displaying 120 highest rated branch results within 15 miles of…" Fine – except that the nearest Agencies displayed are in another town FIVE MILES from the town I requested! Three of us have offices in that town – so at least we were mentioned on pages #1 and #2… as did another whose 7-mile away office scraped onto the bottom of the second page… the poor corporate was relegated to page #3 with their 'nearest' office being 8 miles distant… the other two simply disappear into the ether, I'm afraid – despite one of them also having TWO other office locations within a five-mile radius of the town.
Oh – but the website invite us all to correct their errors. GEE…THANKS, rateragent! How much are you prepared TO PAY ME to fix your poorly cobbled-together offering?
As a huge fan of EYE, I'm sorry to say this publicly – but every column inch you dedicate to this venture is potentially as damaging to YOUR reputation as this site is no doubt going to prove to be to that of Estate Agents up and down the country.
Come on Peebee, you can't go blaming Ros and Nick that a firm sees the benefit in advertising on Property Industry Eye and I know from your posts over the years that you respect Ros's editorial independence. It is commercially natural that an advertiser gets some preference on a news channel and more so when there is good history between the parties involved, however I am not seeing the stories run on this ratings site have compromised PIE's integrity. Story reads are a good indication of whether or not a product will have an impact and I have to admit having read the first story, ignored this one until the comment tally increased; this has been assigned to the 'so?' section, not because the people involved aren't of a calibre to pull this off but because the product focus is wrong. As I said about Houser yesterday this is a solution that fills the design brief but not the sales brief. Agents don't need it, so why build it? The irony that will now contradict what I just said, there is a place for an agent rating product but only as a feature of a bigger product. As such the commercial value is reduced to a % of a monthly subscription and does not warrant a subscription of its own- this isn't a stand alone product; the volume of instructions don’t justify a Tripadvisor type product and any agent reliant on instructions off the back of such a product is the sort of agent who shouldn’t get any.
Robert – obviously, it IS 'the fault' of the EYE team for building, from a standing start, as successful business that others wish to parasite from… however what I AM saying is that some parasites carry nasty ailments with them and I would hate to see my favourite industry news site catch the internet lurgy by giving too much blood. By all means rateragent should expect discounted adverts – but too much exposure in the columns may well, in my humble opinion, simply result in further ragging for rateragent from the likes of me and I fear the possibility of some people turning off EYE as a result of what could be perceived as endorsement. But hey – I've been wrong before so nothing surprises me these days… and I'll be the first to admit if this rateragent malarkey actually proves itself as beneficial to the industry and its' customers.
You ragging an ill concieved propostion is what many come to here read. You help the thinking process and get folk wondering about things from a not obvious perspective. There is a way agent rating should work, I don't think the AA or RA way is the correct way.
sorry- you will have to re-arrange a couple of words in there
Robert – like your goodself I only want what is best for the industry and its' customers – and I simply can't see THIS offering being "best" for either. Maybe if my posting gets attention I am doing the wrong thing – the LESS said about this shenanigans the better. I'm interested, however, in your thoughts as to how a ratings site WOULD work… so should those that are currently trying and failing miserably to do just that!
property industry eye also have a testimonial from Joshua on their front page with him claiming that they have ' doubled' the amount of people attending his course' that's means he probably had 2 on the course
Hi all, Mal here. In order to launch any new business you need an investor or two. Joshua is a non-exec investor in the business and has no day-to-day involvement. David Platt similarly is a non-exec investor. They've helped me out financially to get the business up and running but have no influence on how raterAgent works. We're really upfront about who we are and what we're doing – there is no hidden agenda, it's all on the site. Email me at mal@rateragent.co.uk with any questions at all and I'd be happy to chat!
this site was only registered last week (5/1/15) and owned by a Joshua Rayner??? http://whois.domaintools.com/rateragent.co.uk Is that not the guy that gives PIE their advertising testimonials???
60: Second Interview : Joshua Rayner, Founder of Estate Agency All Stars
http://old.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/60-Second-Interview-Rayner-Founder-of-Estate-Agency-All-Stars
The comments below the story make interesting reading? – is he involved in this review site?
Just looked the company up online, the only director is a David Platt!
TWO now, smile please – Mr McCallion was appointed on 16/1/15. Funny thing is, the company is actually listed as rateD agent Limited. If you type http://www.rateDagent.co.uk into your browser, it will bring up the site no problem. Trouble is for Mr McCallion, rateDagent is already a huge dotcom site doing exactly the same (but no doubt better…) across the pond…
Great idea to source leads for his recruitment business!
What a great spin on what will definitely harm agents.
Good agents already achieve high fees. I recommend agents decline being on this.