When shortlisting a potential hire, may it be an individual or agency, we seek for recommendations. Definitely, we want to know which amongst the candidates had best fit with our requirements and preferences or whether the person or agency we have in mind is the right one. We ask because other people’s responses are our vouch of service quality. They’ve had a first-hand experience of the service provider, so they’d know whether the maid agency that you will hire in the future, for instance, can really provide you with the high standard of service that you are looking for in the first place.
What if you know no one who knows about choosing the right maid agency for you? What if the person you talked to and asked for recommendations had the worst experience when it comes to hiring agencies? What if you already have the names of agency with you, but none of your relatives and friends had no experience whatsoever with these agencies? What will you do? One word: GOOGLE! And what will you google? REVIEWS!
Why reviews?
Based on the Local Consumer Review Survey conducted in May to June 2014, online reviews are increasingly becoming important in the purchasing decision of the consumers. Amongst the more than 2,000 consumers surveyed, about 88% are reading reviews to determine the overall quality of the business.
What does this mean for you?
Simple. It means that you may save a lot of time in determining whether the maid agency that you intend to hire can provide you with quality services. Reading online reviews can instantly provide you with something to measure your expectations against with. If the agency has more negative reviews than positive ones, you may cross the name of the agency on your list and proceed with the other names in the list. If the majority of the reviews are positive then, you may ascertain that you should get your maid from this agency.
Based on the same survey, the consumers are reading from 6 up to 10 reviews before they feel that a particular business can actually be trusted. As such, trust is not initially developed, but it was built along with reading reviews. The higher the number of positive reviews read, the more trustworthy the business becomes.
What does this mean for you?
Trust and credibility are big words. You don’t give your trust right away. Put simply, the maid agency must earn your trust. A review or two cannot necessarily gauge the credibility of an agency, but reading as many reviews as possible will. You’d think twice in hiring a maid agency that has only three reviews especially if two of these reviews are negative. Also, credibility is not a one-time aspect wherein it is also built over time. Going back, if the maid agency only has three reviews dated 2013 and nothing else follows, this is might be a signal of declining service quality. Thus, you might want to stay away from those agencies that lack reviews.
Finally, the survey claims that 88% of the consumers trust the reviews the way they would trust personal recommendations. This is more so if there are several customer reviews online and if they believe that these reviews are authentic.
What does this mean for you?
Indeed, online reviews are the digital word-of-mouth. Although we have to look at the quality and quantity of the reviews, once we determine that the reviews are authentic, it would feel like the maid agency is recommended by one of your friends. One reason behind this is because you know that the one who wrote and published the review is a human being who has the same maid problems as you currently have. The only difference is their maid problems have already been solved and yours, not yet.
Bottom-line
This all boils down to one thing – you have to choose a maid agency with positive or good reviews. This doesn’t mean to be too uptight about the process wherein you discard all the agencies with negative or bad reviews. Okay, there is no way turn a bad review around; a bad review is a bad review. Period. However, know that, a maid agency, like everyone else, cannot please everybody. And experiences are not universal. Just because one client is not happy with the service of a maid agency, it doesn’t mean that you, as a would-be client, will not be happy with the same service. That’s not how things work, and there are many factors at play.
Whatever those factors are, your goal should be finding a maid agency with lots of positive reviews and you are on your way to a really pleasing maid hiring experience. Authentic reviews will not let you down.
Good luck!