How to Stop HomeFeedback.com Spam

I used a similar system in the past and I loved having all the data of the completed surveys to display to my sellers. And I could have what my seller needed to hear be explained by someone else that has no direct benefit to changes made on the listing. This is usually easier to trust for sellers then when I come to them and tell them what I had been told. I no longer use it because I took a break from RE and started back into full time around May. I am wondering how it could be arranged to have the forementioned benefit but not come across as spam to those recieving the emails.

Interesting way to stop emails from automated services.

Just out of interest, why do you prefer to be called by an agent than receive a feedback request by email?

That does seem a little odd they don’t have it set up so you can unsubscribe from all emails, it’s certainly possible. I haven’t used them, but your post doesn’t make me too inclined to try either!

Oh, it is so nice not to get that sort of junk. But then again we have no central appointment center. Here we publish the home owners phone numbers and buyers agents call them direct to make appointments to show. Not the best system but its what we got.

Thanks for the tip, Eric. It gets rid of the spam, but fails in making the point to the sender, which is not to spam in the first place!

We in Dallas kinda get the same thing. We use a central showing service and then they send emails out after we have showed the homes. In most cases they are waiting for me when I get done showing. I prefer in most cases to just send the agent an email rather than talking to them on the phone. Just personal preference!

Eric, I’m just the opposite of you, I love the email solution! I like to send the feedback when I have the time rather than fielding a phone call.

Of course I’m one of those annoying Realtors that answers their phone, a rarity for sure. :-)

I much prefer email than a phone call, some agents will call an hour or so after while we are still showing buyers other homes, that really becomes annoying.

Cant you just block them in outlook, or set it up to go into your junk folder?

I am going to have to side with liking the e-mail feedback. I don’t end up getting feedback calls at inconvenient times and am glad to respond to the feedback e-mail probably more frankly and concisely than if via phone when I have thoughts on something else. If I don’t have time to respond to the e-mail, I will get a reminder later. I think it is a great tool for the listing agent to give the feedback just as it was given without having to candy coat the news. It is hard to shoot the messenger when all he did was print or e-mail the information verbatim as provided by another party. I would think that it is a good tool for getting marginally sellable properties into sellable condition by sellers addressing issues presented in the communique.

If you have time to offer feedback regularly to agents–perhaps defined as feedback on more than 1 out of 10 homes you show–then you are not selling enough homes.

I despise that type of spam including the phone calls–but I can deal occassionally with the latter with the truth that I do not remember your property at all which is almost always the case as it gets dropped out of the mental files as soon as buyer X is not interested.

j

The fault is with them if their systems cannot un-subscribe you from all mailings, however even if their system is faulty in that respect, out of basic common decency they should have arranged to manually remove you themselves, which of course would have resulted in less negative press/feedback such as your blog.

When do these companies ever learn that the customer comes first!

Hi Eric, I used to be with you on this one and I would refuse to respond to agents in my own office as we have quite a bit of contact…however, in this slower market of more difficult reports back to the seller, having them see for themselves via the website makes it a little less personal for the agent. I am considering subscribing myself!

Yeah…so I’m thinking about this more, and I guess what makes me mad about homefeedback.com in particular is:

1) They won’t pull you from their master list.
2) They send 3-4 emails per showing.

yeah sending it 3 or 4 times is way too much twice is enough or once! I remember teasing one of the agents in my office who uses it, telling her I am going to block those and her if she isn’t careful! I just got one today and thought about your blog! Open minds may be the key to survival in this ‘silly market’! Cheers

Wow! I just wrote a big post with my frustration with not getting feedback from agents and our showing service. But I have to say I think ours, even though I don’t like a lot about, is not nearly as spammy, we can only send 3 emails total, my survey takes like 30 seconds to do. But, I only send 2 request, and then I pick up the phone and call the agent…of course I go to voicemail because they are screening calls I guess.

When it comes to feedback, I sometimes respond to these emails and other times I don’t if I am busy. However, if a Realtor calls me for feedback, I try to respond to every call. If they call a second time, I absolutely do without question. I find that I get feedback for 80% of my showings when I take the time to call, not once, but twice to even three times if it is really crtitical I get something. It seems to go over very well with my clients.

Now, some people might think that is a lot of hassle. My clients appreciate it a lot and the minute or two of my time is worth it.

If you unsubcribe from the first feedback request or if provide feedback like over 70% of buyer’s agents do nationwide and in Canada, you won’t receive any more emails from that showing. The default is 3 email requests, but the agent can set it from 1 to 5 if they want to change it.

Realize that the seller is desiring this feedback and they have prepared their home and had you spend time in their home showing it to your clients. They think you could at least provide feedback to help them sell their home as you are a professional real estate agent. Most agents realize this and that is why the response rate is so high. The seller’s also know which agents have not provided feedback after sending the requests as they can login and view who has and who hasn’t provided feedback. Email is much quicker to provide feedback and immediate to provide to the seller if you have a transparent process in place as Homefeedback.com or another service.

The reason for not globally unsubscribing from every Homefeedback subscribers emails is that each showing is a seperate business transaction between two agents. As you cannot unsubscribe from all Outlook emails and stop someone from entering your email into Outlook and emailing you for feedback. Agents also typically belong to the same real estate board whereby the listing agent agrees to cooperate with the buyer’s agent. In return for allowing to cooperate and offer a cooperative brokerage commission; it has always been a common courtesy to try and provide feedback to convey to the seller.

After coming to market with the service in 2001, our subscribers know that calling for feedback has much lesser response rates and they are not providing feedback in a transparent format whereby the seller see’s it directly from the source and thus the seller is much more apt at making listing changes to help sell the home faster.

If there is a faster, more efficient, friendly way to gather that feedback and provide it in a transparent format for the home seller’s, I am all ears as that is our business. We always look to improve for our thousands of agent subscribers.

Rick Bengson
CEO
HomeFeedback.com
ShowingSuite, Inc.

Hi Rick –

Thanks for stopping by. I’ve considered using homefeedback.com, but due to the # of homes I show, I was considerably annoyed by the multiple emails sent (sometimes 5) by each listing agent. This literally turns into hundreds of emails per week from your service.

I have one idea that would greatly improve your service:

Allow the recipients of your mass emails to control their own settings. For instance, I could verify that I own eb@ericbramlett.com and then get into my own backend to choose how many emails I would like to receive from your system – zero through five.

It’s much more respectful to allow the recipients to choose how many emails they would like to receive on a global scale, rather than using the loophole that “each relationship between agents is a separate transaction.” I understand this concept, but am really turned off by the fact that your company won’t go a step further and respect the agents who do provide the feedback by honoring their requests.

I did take the time to email/call your company twice and ask to be removed from your recipient list. If you would allow me to choose “one email per agent, per showing” I would happily choose this option.

Instead, I’ve effectively blocked all email requests from homefeedback.com subscribers.

Glad to hear we have so many subscribers utilizing our system in your area.

You are not blocking emails from us, rather you are blocking agents emails whom you have shown their listings. We don’t add your email, the listing agent does, just as they would via Yahoo mail, or Outlook etc…
As far as choosing how many emails you get; you only get one email per showing if you either provide feedback or click the unsubscribe link. This would only allow you to choose how many feedback request emails that you want to ignore.

Some agents don’t give feedback. At least the seller will know how many times that their agent tried doing their job to try and get the feedback from that agent. Then, they don’t blame their agent as the showing agent chose not to cooperate and provide the feedback. That’s always the showing agent’s choice.

Response rates are going up, not down as it is a quick and easy way to cooperate and provide feedback.

We also launched a new suite of services if you want to check itout at ***self promotion removed*** .

Good selling!

Rick
CEO
Homefeedback.com

You are not blocking emails from us, rather you are blocking agents emails whom you have shown their listings.

As I said, I’m blocking email from your system. Until you allow recipients to choose how many emails they will receive from your system, I will recommend that people manually block it. While you may comply with CAN-SPAM, I still consider this email system facilitating spam.

Oh…now I see why you came by. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=homefeedback.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

I agree with Eric. The multiple e-mails that you receive fro each agent is annoying. Especially in this day and age where we receive soooooo many unwanted e-mails.

Thanks for the tips. We have a couple of these services in my area and they drive me nuts. The worst is that they will sent you up to 2 more follow up emails if you do not respond. If you showing multiple clients homes over a weekend watch out! Anyway thanks for the suggestions

[...] Facilitates Spam Eric Bramlett December 2, 2010I wrote a post a couple of years ago detailing how to stop Homefeedback.com spam.  The post still gets traffic for keywords like “homefeedback spam” so it’s [...]