EAT would like to thank the kind estate agent that sent her a sparkly calendar – complete with an invitation to post up a review of the firm on Allagents, the controversial estate agency comparison website.
The letter says: “Our reputation means everything to us and, with more and more people checking review sites before making a decision on what company to use, I wondered if I could ask you to post a review about our company on the website allagents.co.uk
“This can be based on the relationship we have as a contact or as a client if you have benefited from our service.
“In return, we will of course put our name to a review on any trade or review website that you give us on the same basis.”
Hmm. EAT has so far ignored the opportunity, despite this being the season of good cheer and all that.
But it does beg the question: what is a review on one of these sites REALLY worth?
High time for a bit of OFT intervention – and we never thought we’d say that.
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Comments
or you know, take harry hill's advise and fight?
right, i just tried to write a whole post but for some reason it disappeared so this is going to be brief..
www.agent-tracker.co.uk is a review site that asures all the reviews are written by customers, this is because the only way a single review can actually enter the site is by the estate agent giving a six- digit code to their customers.
yes this is is not china however there is a big difference between opinions and lies. i wouldn't trust reviews on a site like all agents when i know there is a review site where the reviews are genuine.
at agent tracker we are working with the estate agent or letting agent to promote good services..
www.agent-tracker.co.uk!!!!
Nice one harry!
I hear AA have teamed up with SAFEagent to bring out a new condom.
Its the transparent agent condom for the safe agent ! Lol
Is there any agents out there that have joined both the transparent agent scheme AND the SAFEagent scheme.
It would be interested to hear their views on which one carries more weight with the consumer
Well erm I do like transparent agents, but then I do like safe agents BUT which is BEST?????
There is only one way to find out...........................................FIGHT!
See you all after the break :)
Have a merry Christmas everyone and good luck to transparent & safe agent guys!
There are lots of reasons this news article attracts so much interest and so much negative response to Allagents. Besides the bullying, try this:
Allagents claim to scutinise every review left, and that this has resulted in their rejecting some 80,000 reviews (previous EAT article).
FROM ALLAGENTS WEBSITE'S RULES FOR LEAVING A REVIEW:
Our Rules:
We welcome all constructive reviews.
Be honest and fair.
Only review agents you have direct experience with.
Use of any offensive language is not acceptable.
DO NOT NAME AND CRITICISE individuals. You may mention individuals' names only in positive reviews.
Do not use a temporary email address.
Do not leave a review from within an agents office network. Reviews found to have originated from an agent will be rejected.
All submissions will be checked before publishing, your review may take usually up to 7 days to appear on this site.
We request that you read our Terms and Conditions before you rate and review an agent.
-----------------------------
RANDOM NEGATIVE REVIEW FROM ALLAGENTS SITE:
-------------------------------------
Bill (William) Burn (the owner) owes me 2 months rent - pulled contract and am sueing with the Judgement awarded to me - I switched my business to ******* up the road.
His daughter (Becky) got involved to sort out the problems but left shortly afterwards - Hannah is the only long suffering employee left.
The guy is a nighmare.
----------------------------------------
comfused rentor - All agents is a review site allowing people to leave anonymous reviews of an agent.
SAFE agents is a mark which tells the consumer that the agent has Clients Money protection insurance if things go wrong. Its about consumer protection like ABTA
@ transparent rip off. Every review site I have ever seen carries advertising. That is normally how they all make income. I haven't looked in great detail at them, however I would imagine that most of the listings don't get a say on what adverts are placed on their profile pages.
At least there is an argument that AA allow the agent to brand their own page and show their own adverts.
If an agent doesn't want to take them up on that offer, then that is their own choice. However if you decline to take them up on their advertising then you have no right to complain because someone else has taken it.
It's a bit like complaining because your competitor is on RM, but your not on it because you wont pay the money.
There appears to a lot of talk about transparent agent and safe agents. There appears 2 different kite marks for tenants should be looking our for.
I can understand the transparent agent kite mark about reviews, but what exactly is the safe agent thing about?
A REVIEW site should be a REVIEW site.
How can the consumer focus on the reviews of an agent when there are banners everywhere suggesting that they don't use the agent unless the agent is a subservient transparent agent? Albeit the small print right at the end clarifying that transparent or non-transplant status actually has no bearing on the agent’s reviews or standing.
And what does it say for any review site that will encourage competitors to advertise prominently on other agents’ review pages.
Advertising? No, I don't want to advertise on a review site. I want my reviews to be my advertisement. And no, I don't want to advertise over my competitors’ review pages. That’s tantamount to fixing large banners advertising my company all over their shop-fronts. For one, I wouldn't do that and, second, they're my neighbours! It's rude!
If a review site wants to make money out of those being reviewed, it should find an ethical way of doing so.
I have just done a search of all agents and in a five mile search of my postcode it lists none(A BIG FAT ZERO)
Guess what i have four agents on the same side as the road of me a couple of hundred yards up the road.
In the town 3 miles away there are another 6...i reckon in the five mile radius there are over twenty that this site does not recognise..
I have dismissed it as irrelevant.
http://www.whichpropertyagent.co.uk
Maybe an alternative... anyone have any experience of Which Property Agent?
It's so easy to spot the self-promoting posts being made here by AllAgents. Why do those guys always feel the need to HIDE? Why dont they show themselves, and speak to us openly? Such hypocrisy.
The story so far;
1)Anyone can make a review that is not fully verified
2)Some agents try to get as many people as possible to leave reviews
3)When you ask someone to confirm a review no information is given and they do not contact the reviewer asking them to get in touch with the agent
3) AA then asks agents to sign up for free and become a transparent agent as well as advise agents that they should advertise on their page before someone your competition does
4)But to become a transparent agent you must put their logo and links to their site all over your website etc
What next....AA states to all agents that you must pay for the service and if not you are in the minority as all other agents are members.
It's nothing short of bribery, at least the new portals are upfromt about it, this is just a con!
I spoke to them last week and it is true that everything is free. They have purposely designed it that way do that estate agents cannot justify costs as a reason for not using their site.
They are apparently getting ready to launch a major marketing and advertising campaign in january.
The ones to blame here are the agents who are asking their clients as well as their mum, dad and mate from the pub to leave a review, they think their gaining a lead on the competition when in fact all they are doing is creating an addional overhead for themselves...Not yet maybe but in 12 months you will be paying £300 per month to be a transparent agent and have your properties listed on their site.
Morons!
It's a clever idea...but they must think agents are stupid!
WOAH! Paul H - the list has grown since last week! Seem to be adding new rules every day. And what a list of demands! Before you know it we'll have to have a bust of their managing director prominently displayed in our shopfronts… Or perhaps not, after all – that might make him open and transparent!!!
They have no desire to be the new ARLA, only the multi-million pound company, rightmove.
Rightmove costs going up, business rates going up, rents going up. Can agents really afford another overhead, it's money for old rope?
Oh I get it Allagents are the new ARLA!!
From the allagents website;
To become a 'Transparent Agent' the agent must;
◦Place our allAgents banner in a prominent position on all pages of their website (in the header of each page)
◦Place two small text links in the footer of all their pages
◦Support and promote allAgents FREE products and services. In particular, they MUST advertise all properties on the
FREE listings section of our AllAgents property portal
◦Actively promote their allAgents profile in marketing activities and promotional materials in conjunction with allAgents
'best Practice' procedures.
◦Sign a declaration to operate within and maintain the scheme membership standards, best practice and terms and
conditions
◦Have a senior member of the company respond to every review, good and bad - to ensure that the public know that the
agent is listening to customer feedback
Any agent that signs up to this must be mad!
An extract from the Allagents article in EAT on 25 August, 2011:
The Transparent Agent Kitemark is awarded to agents that embrace the opportunity to become transparent about what their customers are saying about them (good and bad). To qualify the agent must display the Read our Reviews on allAgents banner in a prominent position on their own website front page, linking back to their profile page and reviews on allAgents.co.uk. The positioning of the logos must be approved by allAgents and is checked daily to maintain their status.
--------------------------------
Some agents saw this as a good business opportunity, especially given that they were promised it was free and would remain free, but just 3 1/2 months later they are told that they must now display the Allagents banner on EVERY page of their website, along with a further two text links back to the Allagents homepage (NOT our review pages). Why? And what next?
And what if Allagents achieve their ambition of having their company prominently displayed on most agent websites in the country? Another Rightmove? Think about it…
I got the impression that it because the agent was prepared to write a review about them in return that was the concern.
Nat appears to be all for review websites and wrote a blog a month ago about it.
What can the OFT do about a website that is allowing consumers to voice their own views.
We live in the UK, not china!
Is EAT suggesting calling in the OFT in respect of Allagents, or the estate agent with the calendar?
And has anyone actually reported Allagents to the OFT yet?
I think there is a misconception about Allagents fees.
The site is ingeniously designed so that you get access to everything for free. This includes valuations and property listings.
To get free valuation leads all you do is sign up to their transparent agent scheme.
They only charge for page sponsorship and featuring reviews. It's not even mandatory but it looks like the banners are cleverly designed to show agents that their advertising actually works!
They also have an agent right to reply and encourage agents to use it.
Its worth reading their website in more detail before arguing over incorrect information.
@converted
You miss the point. All the agents will not recommend that a customer uses an agent even if it has a 5 star rating unless that agent has paid them a fee. It will even go as far as suggesting that said agent 'is not transparent'
Converted, Do you know if the agency I run is any good?
I can pay 'all the agents' a fee and have 60, 100% positive reviews done by the start of march. More than that if I was to involve facebook friends, staff, friends of staff etc etc.
You see it means nothing. 'alltheagents' can poke it and the minute a slanderous comment is made against our firm that can’t be quantified then we WILL take legal action.
'converted': "As a viewer watching, it wasnt difficult to realise that the reviewers got it spot on and the businesses should have been shut down long ago!"
Funny, that - as 'a viewer watching' the very same programme, I saw a load of whingeing morons who clearly went out of their way to look for things to complain about in the pretence that it was for the good of mankind and not just because they got their rocks off reading their own blinkered drivel.
Do you ever ask yourself how much VT goes in the bin in the making of these 'factual' programmes - because it actually shows those who the programme aims to condemn in a good light?
MY guess is fifty times more than that which gets aired...
The fact remains, if your are buying anything, you will favour a higher ranked service or product.
IF this service ensured that only actual clients who have conducted business with the agent were able to post, then everyone is happy.
Don't play the 'something to hide' card - zzzz. If the posters aren't authentic, it's a pointless service. If they were genuine posters, this idea would be great.
And also meant to add........
A review site that contains genuine reviews.
@converted said;
"Its hard to please everyone (including agents) all the time. However in my books anyone that's against an industry related review site has got something that they want to hide."
Have you not read any of the posts in this thread, have you actually used the site!
I WANT REVIEW SITES BUT ONLY ONE THAT IS FAIR AND ALLOWS INTERACTION BETWEEN THE REVIEWER AND AGENT!
I watch an interestingprogramme recently on channel 4 about trip advisor where they filmed both the business owners and the reviewers.
As expected all the business owners were complaining about it, exactly like you guys.
The cameras followed the business owners around while they discussed the reviews.
As a viewer watching, it wasnt difficult to realise that the reviewers got it spot on and the businesses should have been shut down long ago!
Its hard to please everyone (including agents) all the time. However in my books anyone that's against an industry related review site has got something that they want to hide.
Paul H, understand what you say, but nor was the restaurant critic's comments balance, just his opinion, the place was packed, quality will prevail.
If posting on sites actually achieved something, all the HPC nutters and EA knockers posting largely from a position of jealousy and ignorance would have achieved something rather than completely nothing, despite continual droning on posts, they would will less angry negative, depressed girls.
@Still here and will be, no worries! said;
"Any site that just contains negative will fail"
Yes but here is the problem, anyone can leave positive or negative reviews and these reviews are not thoroughly verified!
Stop bleating you are making the knockers think they have something! Wrong, calm down girls!
How many years has agency meant to be going on line, the High Street office is dead, privte sales, it will go the way of the travel industry, blah blah , well it hasn’t and the mighty net has been around for sometime now
I went to a Michelin 2 start restaurant this week, first review I read prior was the service was poor and the ambiance rubbish. Stop me going? Not for a second, the poster obviously had an axe to grind or no idea what he was talking about, anyone savvy enough should see though that. (Fantastic meal and event.)
Any site that just contains negative will fail, we are not that thick.
Exactly Paul H - Another massive problem that appears to be swept under the carpet by AA.
I think we all know the trick, just as well as All Agents do....
This 'service' is specifically designed to make them money. There is no other intention. The actual 'service' on offer is terrible and has so many downfalls.
Yes, a business is designed to make money. But it has to be offering SOMETHING in terms of product and/or service in return. All Agents do not do either.
5 stars and you still have to pay to be 'recommended' - its a joke, right?!
Tell Allagents you will sue the nuts off em' if they publish anything defamatory about your agency, and if they do... sue them.
@ACEOFSPADES.....Well said sir, you have pretty much summed it up!
My main issue is that anyone can say anything about anyone with the standard allagents response being "we encourange you to repsond back".
That's great, happy to do so, however, the only problem with that is that the reviewer gives no name, no property address, nothing. You then ask for them to supply information so that you can try to address the complaint, and you get nothing back....can someone please tell me how anyone can respond or deal with such an issue, it's impossible. It's a lose/lose situation for the agent, however you look at it.
Case in point being, I had one bad review on another site about us not turning up on a viewing or contacting to advise that the viewing was cancelled with the reviewer saying that we did not care about purchasers and she would recommend that no one uses our service. I then emailed the site asking for the reviewer to supply relevant information about their complaint. They supplied this, and after investigation and discussion with the reviewer it was established that we did email her to the email address she supplied(which she agreed was the wrong address that she gave us) and we could not call her as she did not supply a number. We apologised for the inconvenience and she consequently deleted her review.
The issue was adequately resolved!
This type of review site I am happy with, but one where the odds are heavily stacked against GOOD agents, no thank you.
@ Get Real.
Are you working for AA?
@ Andy smith
If sponsorship is how they generate their income, then what's the problem??
If you don't like what the banners say then sponsor it yourself and stop Your moaning!I'
I'm moaning because I have no choice. I either pay money or have an advert above my company basically saying, do not use this company.
Yet I have a 5 star rating and history of excellent service and customer reviews. If people are prepared to spend their time recommending my company, then why should I pay a review site to stop telling people not to use my company?
If you can give me an explanation for this that is reasonable, then I will go and pay them some money before they double their fees in January.
Firstly, EAT and all agents seem to have had a little lover's tiff. A few months ago they had a nice article on the site (it could ripped to pieces!) and now they are suggesting OFT take a look. Disagreement on the next advert/story price?!
I have never heard of All Agents outside of EAT. Nobody has ever mentioned it to me and I have not seen any marketing presence from them anywhere.
Out of interest, I searched "find an estate agent" in Google - Quite a common and fair search. They weren't on page 1, nor page 2 and true public style, I didn't get to page 3.
The idea of ratings is very, very good. But it needs to be done correctly and AA have a 'get rich quick scheme' (i doubt it is working!) that simply does not work for the agent.
Ebay. Pair of trainers. £44.95. Buy it Now. Item received. You can then leave feedback yourself for YOUR transaction. You have to physically make that purchase before you leave the feedback.
So, if Tom, Dick or Harry can't leave fantasy/falsely negative feedback on a pair of trainers, where does it make sense for them to be able to do it to an estate agent? Or for competition to do it?
That's the question AA cannot answer and choose to ignore, because they know it is utter BS. The 'service' is flawed and paying to be a 'recommended/transparent' agent....come on, give us a break.
IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE FOR ABSOLUTELY ANYONE TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE A REVIEW. End of story.
get real: 'I'm sitting here reading these comments with disbelief !'
I'm sitting here reading your comments with incredulity!
I wonder how you'll feel when a particularly awkward customer posts a scathing review about you on the site.
And when one of your closest competitors has a number of glowing reviews on there.
The phrase 'there is one born every minute' keeps popping into mind.
@ bigG
Being in the estate agency market for over 30 years does not automatically make you a genuine hard working person. That is only YOUR point of view.
From interpreting your previous comment, I had to draw a conclusion that YOUR customers point of view differed from yours.
By replying to my comment, you provided me with a more balanced point of view. My perception now is that you are a mature individual that perhaps is finding it hard to accept the changes taking place that the Internet, in the form of social media has brought to the property industry.
That is why I can't believe agents are against the site. The owners have designed the site that allows agents to respond with their point of view!
Get Real :
@bigG
Your obviously one of the rogue agents that is the reason why we need sites like this- to put out of business.
I have been trading for over 10 years in my own business and in excess of 30 years in estate agency I therefore have I am sure a far better understanding of marketing and the harm that such a web site can do to genuine hard working businesses like my own. It is agents such as you who are likely to be responsible for writing spurious and libelous comments, such as that which you write herein. If I was a rogue agent as levelled at me you chump I would be out of business by now. I suggest you mind your p's and q's in future. Oh and by the way the use of the word Your is incorrect. Please try harder next time.
I'm sitting here reading these comments with disbelief !
There is a website providing a service and what seems to be in about preventing consumers from falling into the hands of rogue agents. Bravo this is something that's well over due
@ Andy smith
If sponsorship is how they generate their income, then what's the problem??
If you don't like what the banners say then sponsor it yourself and stop Your moaning!I'
@ian
If you don't like your details being in the public domain or customer reviews then your in the wrong game my friend.
@bigG
Your obviously one of the rogue agents that is the reason why we need sites like this- to put out of business.
Anyway rant over
Happy christmas and lets hope 2012 sees a few more of the rogue agents getting exposed.
erm... the qoute from 'expert agent' I was referring to SHOULD have been:
"Unless I am mistaken Allagents.co.uk is a web forum!"
Dunno how it got replaced with what is shown below...
'expert agent': "An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages."
Ermmm - then you are mistaken. It is a review site. There are no threads; nothing is up for debate; you cannot carry on a 'conversation' or invite others to join in.
Feel free to argue the point, of course...
Allagent website is a scam
no more, no less
@ RICS Agent
Unless I am mistaken Allagents.co.uk is a web forum!
All these other forums that you mention are just your point of view.
Even if it was fact, it's the customer that you need to convince.
What your saying is a bit like having a great that no one will buy. Iyou may believe you have the best product in the world, but if you can't convince your customers then I am afraid it's failed.
You mentioned previously that agents are using it as a marketing tool.
There is RM for property searching and there now appears to be AA for reviewing agents.
Without verification that those posting are real clients.....
@expert witness - I am not disagreeing, but how can a customer attribute any value to reviews which are on average added less than once a year?
IF you want to know the truth about agents, the best place is local web forums, twitter, facebook - social media offers impartial current views. AllAgents is a focal point far more open to manipulation and skulduggery. social media attracts more genuine observation and comment
The case study of Halifax is a case in point - on the face of it a bad agent - but in part based upon a review from 2008?
@RICS Agent
I agree with some of your points, however all I was trying to do was look at it from a customers point of view.
This review site is undoubtably trying to change the way we do business by allowing their customers to read reviews about agents before they make decisions.
From a customers point of view, to speak to an agent that has got these links over their site , has got glowing customer reviews AND a website stating that this agent is a transparent agent. This has got to carry some influence on their descision making.
Right or wrong, it's going to get harder to Ignore it if your competition is promoting it
@expert witness
There are 3 types of agent - those who milk it for all its worth and use it as a marketing tool - fair enough.
Those who add fake reviews and malign competitors - I know this happens for a fact - source - interviewees
And then there is the rest of us who dont give a stuff as there arent enough reviews to make any difference because only industry really bother.
You see, one of the most maligned agents is Foxtons - and they seem to do OK.
add in some names from the bottom 10 - FJ Lord, Countrywide, Your Move, Leaders, Bairstow Eves and it seems customers dont care either.
The top agents are the ones who promote it to their customers. Not only that, most of the bottom 100 have less than 10 reviews.
In fact, as an example of how misleading it is, Halifax Estate Agents have only ONE review this year - it begins "Tried to buy a house through them in 2008."
How does that help a customer?
On a serious note. This site has Definately got the power to influence every customers descision making. It would be interesting to know how much business these transparent agents are generating from it.
Taking my own views of it out of the equation, I can see agents that don't promote are concerned.
Why doesn't one of the corporates not go in and buy them out?
All Agents UK web rank is 12,000 - roughly the same as Marsh & Parsons - Foxtons UK rank is a stunning 1000. Rightmoves is 36. HOWEVER - AA's bounce rate is 56% - which means more than half the people visiting the site do not look beyond the home page as its not what they were searching for.
Our bounce rate is just 22%
simply, the traffic for All Agents is poor as demonstrated by the lack of reviews. People only care about CURRENT performance, not what happened 3 years ago. Its a waste of money
Perspective please.
There are currently 8083 agents listed on AllAgents.
There are 14,204 reviews which have been left over the last couple of years.
Thats 1.75 per agent - hardly Tripadviser.
One local agent has just 9 reviews since 2008 yet they are displayed as being in the bottom 50 agents. They are actually OK and dark arts are suspected from a competitor who promotes Allagents and gets his staff to all write reviews from their home PC's.
Its too easy to manipulate to have credibility.
So, its purpose I suspect is to generate advertising revenue and web traffic before its gets sold to someone.
This for me is where this website (EAT) comes into its own. Forget the house price banter, industry insider knowlege comented on by industry insiders. I like it.
I have now been told by Allagents that if I do not advertise now the price will be doubled on the 1st of January.
AllAgents recommend that consumers only use an Agent that has signed up to and has been awarded our Transparent Agent Profile. If you do choose to contact or use 'Example Estate Agent', please make them aware and ask them to get in touch with allAgents to clarify their position.
These guys are nothing but a bunch of terrorists and blackmailers! They tell buyers/vendors NOT to use any of their so called Non Transparent Agents but to get on said list you have to bow and scrape to their self publicising demands. I cannot believe this bunch of cowboys can lawfully operate like this. The OFT needs to stick its nose in this particular trough. Heres hoping 2012 see the demise of this company.
Don't use Allagents. Don't read any reviews, they are useless. And as a golden rule don't trust ANY estate agents. Sell your property with Rightmove.
It is a shame that The Property Ombudsman (TPO) do not send out questionnaires to clients after all types of transactions on a regular basis, rather than every few years. We scored 98% and had some excellent comments, however this was in 2008. All members of NAEA have to pay membership but do not appear to get much back in return. An annual census should be undertaken by TPO and the general public made more aware of this facility.
If this was done, there would be no need for Agent comparison sites, after all Joe Public would much sooner trust an independent, impartial arbiter.
I don't see how EAT are in with them judging by the last sentence of the article:
High time for a bit of OFT intervention – and we never thought we’d say that.
Either EAT are involved with these guys or Allagents is paying them to advertise here.
If a rating site can downgrade the credit rating of America, then I am sure an online estate agent rating site like this must be able to make a major impact on the property market.
The site does appear to have been well thought through and if they have a bit of money behind them then who knows where it can go
Festive Moan ials.
Dont use this firm Allagents. It is utter rubbish. If it starts to take a hold with one particular agent (cheating) in your area, actively advertise in other mediums to the public that they should ignore this flawed concept and see it for what it is.
It is an advertising money making scam.
We built RM with OUR advertising, we could easy pull down a site like this with OUR COLLECTIVE advertising.
14,000 estate agents do not like this site! think on that.
Merry Christmas
HO HO HO
I don't advertise on allagents because I do not agree with their tactics although I would be happy to advertise if I felt it was worth my while.
I tried to become a transparent agent, but they moved the goalposts.
At first it was just a logo on my front page, then it had to be moved up to the top of the screen, so that it would be seen better. After that, they wanted me to put 2 other links on every page to their website. Yet I get one link back and its not on their main pages.
Once again I am happy to link back to websites, but not in this manner.
That is the main problem LG.
People are happy to post bad reviews, but asking for good reviews and getting them are 2 different things.
You need to provide an outstanding service and usually to somebody that has previously had a bad experience with another agent before they will spend time signing up to a website to post a review.
We get them all the time via e-mail, but we can't use them on review sites or it looks like we are making them up.
I agree with reveiew sites but this website is not the way forward. To use this site in the way some agents do is immoral and a disgusting way to make a living.
What Andy Smith says is a terrible practice, can not trading standards intervene to take allagents to task? Its definitley worth reporting them. I have just asked allagents to remove company from site as seem to be in similar situation.
Anyone else out there with a bad review that has been falsified?
We have received 5 review since 2008. 1 was from another agent and one was malicious. So really, what does that tell you. (and we have done 5000 lets in this time across a number of sites)
Likewise, most people either give 5 stars or 1 star - its only people with an axe to grind or exceptional service which gets reported.
Our reviews on Google seem to bring us a lot of business. We have reviews on many review sites, but nobody ever mentions those to us, so I assume they do not get seen.
I have tried negotiating with Allagents for a long time, but feel that they are holding my company over a barrel due to their advertising options. If I do not advertise, then another I end up with the banner over our company saying do not use this agent although we have the best reviews in the region. Another agent could advertise that space and take any potential clients from us even if they have a poor reputation.
I am all for review sites because of the business I get from testimonials, but am not happy to be held to ransom.
They have come up with a clever way to gain advertisement fees if the site becomes very popular. Many agents are pushing clients to this website and that is what will make it popular.
A review site should be just that and an agent with a history of poor service should not be able to pay money to gain clients. Hopefully people will see through the ads and make a decision based purely on reviews.
London Agent, do you by any chance work for allagents? Someone seems to of entered the company I work for on there and there is instantly a 1 star review which has nothing to do with us in an area we do not deal with. Avoid this site at all costs
We are starting to find allagents are coming up at valuations now. Up until then I hadn't even heard of them.
It appears that this site has become a massive marketing tool for agents.
I know of one agent that was loosing a potential big client over his fees. He referred him to this site and got the deal.
Forget about twitter and facebook. This site appears to be the big wave to hit the property market