Industry newcomer AccomProperties are making some fairly outlandish claims about their web portal of late. I came across this rather amusing banner-ad while browsing the internet recently:
Of the 2 line heading, they managed to squeeze 2 arguably false claims into their ad… I’m actually impressed – but not in a good way.
Claim 1: AccomProperties.com.au is “…Australia’s Leading Management Rights Portal…”
That’s a mighty big claim for a website that’s been around for what… 18 months?
To inject some reality back into the discussion: our management rights portal has been operational since 2005, turns over ~1 million dollars a year, logs over 25,000 visits per month, generates thousands of enquiries per month, holds accounts with every MR broker in the industry, and outranks AccomProperties on every major search engine (First organic place of page one on Google.com.au, and first place organic on page 1 of Bing.com for “management rights” at the time of writing). When I searched just then, AccomProperties was in last place on page 1 of Google, and didn’t even show up at all on page 1 of Bing for “management rights”. That’s a pretty weird definition of “leading”.
Claim 2: AccomProperties.com.au contains “ALL listings”.
Those of you playing along at home can verify the legitimacy of this claim quite easily. A cursory glance at their current listings reveals they have only 563 Management Rights advertised at time of writing. By comparison, TheOnsiteManager.com.au has 821 Management Rights advertised at the time of writing. I’m utterly puzzled at these sort of statements – what are they thinking when they make claims like this? Who are they trying to fool? If AccomProperties can make straight-faced statements like this about their portal’s performance in public, I wonder what sort of claims they are trotting out to advertisers behind closed doors? I consider it to be utter nonsense and something that cannot be allowed to go unanswered.
Why dont you make a complaint to office of fair trading for false advertising?
As I understand it, the OFT take consumer complaints quite seriously… complaints lodged by competitors, not so much. What should happen is their paying advertisers should complain about the questionable claims being made, then they can be taken to task.
It’s a part of business these days to have other ‘not so experienced’ businesses start up and lay claim to ‘being the best’ at what they do. It’s easy to look the part on a website and with words, not so easy to keep up the hard work and good customer service for years to come.
As an established business, watching them pop up every few months is frustrating but your experience and professionalism will shine through in the end and your customers will realise this.
to be a realist…. does it really matter?
If we look at the politicians that promise the world and deliver nothing this kind of pales in significance… dont you think ? I dont know of any real estate agents that exaggerate in their spiels….
Of course it matters. If a competitor is making misleading claims about their product, then one is obligated to highlight that.