Our latest feature, Spectora Reviews, allows you to collect reviews on Spectora's platform.
You might be wondering... Why would you want to worry about another place to get reviews? Several reasons:
We'll use these reviews to help determine ranking order on our Find a Home Inspector pages and the Inspector Near Me page. These often rank in the first couple pages on Google and are used to get more direct leads from potential home buyers and real estate agents.
We're building some upcoming features to help you get more leads from agents - we'll be using Spectora Reviews to vet which inspectors can benefit from these programs.
Spectora Reviews' average star rating will display on your Google results listing for your Spectora Profile, which often ranks on page 1 when your company name is searched. Show everyone you're a quality inspector!
Getting reviews directly in our report is much easier and will result in more reviews faster than sending links or getting off-site reviews.
If you're a multi-inspector company, Spectora Reviews allows you to get feedback on your inspectors for evaluation.
Here's how reviews will display on your profile in our Find a Home Inspector pages and the Inspector Near Me page (with more weight being placed on reviews as we accumulate more):
How do clients and agents leave reviews?
There are three places Spectora Reviews can be made. One (the client view) is always present once you enable Spectora Reviews. The other two are optional: in the report and in automated emails/text messages.
Client View
Once you enable Reviews, the Client View (aka "Client Portal") will show a new box when visited by a client or agent:
Once the user clicks on a star, the box expands to allow for an additional comment:
Please note this box only shows up when the user is coming from a placeholder link in one of your emails or text messages. As a logged-in inspector, you will not see this.
In the Report
You can optionally enable Reviews to be embedded in your reports. We highly recommend this approach, as it will likely result in the most reviews. More reviews is good, because a less-than-stellar review won't affect your average as much.
If you enable reviews in the report, a popup shows up when a client or agent views the report:
Again, when they click a star it will expand to add an optional comment:
The dropdown box at the bottom allows the user to choose from the client(s) or the client's agent. The hope is only clients and agents are leaving reviews, just in case a link gets forwarded to others. Because we don't have client/agent logins we can't know for certain, but at least this is a deterrent to a random person leaving you a review should they be forwarded an email/text.
In Emails/Texts
Lastly, you can add review functionality in your automation emails or text messages (both in Automation and Actions).
The {{REVIEW_STARS}} placeholder will put star images directly in your email, offering minimal friction for a user to leave you a review.
The {{REVIEW_LINK}} placeholder provides a button link for a user to leave you a review. The {{REVIEW_TEXT_LINK}} does the same for text messages with a shortened URL.
Here's how they might look in an email:
When they click either a star or the link it launches a stand-alone review widget:
If using the stars, the rating they clicked will be pre-populated.
How to start using Spectora Reviews
To get started with using Spectora Reviews, first pop into Settings->Spectora Reviews and check the box to "Enable Spectora Reviews". Next, decide if you want the review popup in your reports or as a task in the client portal (which we recommend!). You can also choose if company admins should receive a notification when a review comes in:
Next, if you'd like to include placeholders in Automations or Actions, you can add the placeholders {{REVIEW_STARS}} and {{REVIEW_LINK}} into your emails and {{REVIEW_TEXT_LINK}} for text messages.
To look at your reviews, visit Settings->Reviews:
Here's how to disable Spectora Reviews:
Keep in mind that if you disable Spectora Reviews, we still display your old reviews you received when Spectora Reviews was enabled.
We hope that Spectora Reviews, in combination with some upcoming features that will help our inspectors get more leads and direct bookings from large brokerages and agencies, will help you grow your business!