Zillow, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z), the leading real estate information and home-related marketplace, today announced the launch of Zillow® Tech Connect: Reviews. For the first time, brokers, agents and MLSs will be able to display individual agents’ Zillow reviews on their website through Zillow Tech Connect.
“Customer reviews have become an incredibly powerful tool for brokers and agents,” said Greg Schwartz, Zillow chief revenue officer. “We hear all the time from agents that their reviews on Zillow are continually generating new business opportunities for them. Agents with 10 or more reviews on Zillow see more than a 300 percent increase in contacts versus agents with no reviews. Allowing agents and brokers to showcase the great feedback on their own sites will be a great benefit for our partners.”
The reviews available to agents, brokers and MLSs to publish on their sites are the exact reviews found on Zillow and are held to the same high standard. In order to post a review, every reviewer must have a Zillow account, reviewers must specify what service the agent provided, all reviews are screened through proprietary Zillow fraud filters, and lastly, all reviews are moderated by Zillow staff. Additionally, Zillow is creating a co-branded interface that allows agents and brokers to easily solicit reviews from their customers to appear on their websites and Zillow.
Windermere Real Estate, one of the largest independent real estate companies in the nation, is the first brokerage working to make Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews available on Windermere agent websites on an optional basis. “We are excited that clients will have the ability to learn about and review our agents through this Windermere-Zillow co-branded interface,” said OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, adding, “It will be a great enhancement to our agents’ online marketing and will add a level of transparency that consumers these days expect.”
Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews is also available to real estate brokerage technology providers. The first technology provider to join Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews is Moxi Works™. Originally developed inside the walls of Windermere Real Estate, Moxi Works is now a stand-alone, privately-held company providing technology services to real estate brokerages across the country.
“We are very excited to offer our brokerage customers the chance to add Zillow agent reviews to their agents’ websites,” York Baur, CEO of Moxi Works. “Recent research proves how valuable reviews are in helping agents win business, and Zillow has simplified the process, allowing us to automate access to this information. It will bring an immense amount of value to brokerages and their agents to be able to showcase the great things their customers have been saying about them.”
Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews is an expansion of the popular Zillow Tech Connect platform, which allows technology companies to connect their systems with Zillow, creating a more seamless experience for the brokers and agents who use Zillow as a key component of their marketing efforts at no additional cost. Zillow Tech Connect: Reviews is expected to launch in the coming weeks and will use an easy-to-support API connection.