For Trusted Vendors

Team

We’re a team of 6 people who are passionate about helping people discover great vendors. We’re based in Burlingame, California, on the peninsula between San Francisco and Palo Alto.

Bev Harada
UX Consultant

Dave Okada
Marketing Consultant

Eric Jacobs
CEO

Mimi Saxby
Engineering

Oliver Goldberg-Seder
Engineering

Suzanne Jacobs
Engineering

What is Real Word of Mouth

We are a PropTech company that helps agents renovate properties better and faster with our digital assistant, VendorBot™.

Vendorbot™ is the first digital assistant that helps agents grow and leverage a deep bench of vendors.

Real estate professionals use Real Word of Mouth and VendorBot to:

• Prepare homes for sale or move-in
• Maintain and manage properties and short-term rentals
• Identify experts to manage financial, business and legal affairs
• Provide concierge services by referring vendors to clients

Our technology has natural applications beyond real estate wherever businesses or consumers need vendors. People use Real Word of Mouth and VendorBot to:

• Build a list of resources for a homeowners association, volunteer organization, school, or parent group
• Plan an event or fundraiser
• Find a great dentist, doctor or pediatrician
• Improve a child's grades and test scores with the right tutor
• Plan a trip

We make discovering great vendors easy through the power of people you know.

Our mission

We effortlessly deliver trusted vendor recommendations to get your projects done, better and faster.

We created this company because we believe that vendors recommended by people you know and trust are at the heart of making your professional and personal life better.

Core values

• Respect member privacy
• Be a good steward
• Act responsibly and be accountable
• Honor commitments
• Communicate transparently and openly

Our manifesto

• We are here for you.
• For real people, real businesses, real reviews.
• We're for sharing, but not always with anyone and everyone.
• We're for freely speaking your mind, frankly, with people you know.
• We believe that reviews from people you know are better than reviews from anonymous strangers.
• We believe that if you share a review with people you know, your review can only be read by those people and no one else. Ever.
• We believe that great vendors thrive on real, honest client recommendations and referrals.
• We embrace constructive criticism.
• We are Real Word of Mouth for real, trusted reviews from people you know.

Privacy

We make it possible to share recommendations and reviews privately, about anything, and with only whom you want. Some say privacy is dying in this connected age. We disagree - we believe privacy matters more than ever. Here's how we protect your privacy:

• Everyone uses their real name so that you always know who you are sharing with, just like in real life.
• Nothing happens without your permission. You choose who to invite as friends, and which friend and group invitations to accept.
• For each review that you write, you can choose who can see it. You can even choose "only me", so that no one but you can read your notes and comments.
• Everything you do is protected by password and encrypted by https.
• No review shared privately will ever show up in Google or other search engines.
• Because we use real names, if you do write a public review that anyone can read, the business will naturally know it's from you.

To learn more about privacy, read our complete Privacy Policy.

Member Guidelines for Real Word of Mouth

The best reviews offer a personal experience, a wealth of detail, and a helpful tip or two. Below are some additional thoughts for conscientious reviewers.

Honestly represent yourself - be real

• Use your real name, not an alias, pseudonym, or abbreviation.
• Join as an individual, not as a couple, family or organization.
• Take the time to add a photo.
• If you're creating or managing a vendor profile, use real and verifiable contact information. We may contact you to confirm your business information if we cannot verify it using public records.
• If you're creating or managing a vendor profile, take the time to fill out your profile - describe your business and add your branding (a banner image and a business profile photo or logo).

Be respectful

• When writing a public review or sharing with a group with public membership, write with respect and refrain from using profanity or discriminatory language.
• When sharing a private review with a team, group or friends, feel free to write what you wish and express yourself as you would in person. What you write is truly private and only seen by those you choose to share with.

Share helpful information

• Review local businesses and services without spamming or inappropriate self-promotion.
• Write about your direct experience as a customer. Tell your own story about your personal experience.
• Steer clear of broad generalizations or insinuations.
• Do not write reviews about your own business, or about your current or past employers.
• Consider reading the Lifehacker article, “How to write genuinely useful reviews”. Paraphrasing:
• Include relevant details – when the work was done and by whom, with relevant information to your complaint or compliment.
• Omit the extraneous details – like the weather, what you were wearing, or where you were sitting unless it’s important.
• Don’t be vindictive – it undermines your credibility. Instead, discuss your experience in an intelligent, coherent and honest way.
• A “useful” review is not always positive – but don’t write in a fit of rage, check your spelling and grammar, use complete sentences, and lay off the exclamation points.
• Remember that your review is just your experience – no one wants to read, “I’ve heard lots of other people have the same issue.” It sounds like you’re manufacturing "other people" to bolster your opinion and makes your review less believable.
• Point out why you think you had your specific experience – perhaps you were upgraded because you approached the staff with kindness. Don’t be afraid to speculate.
• Address the other side of the story when you have a negative experience – put yourself in the shoes of the business or professional. By showing a little understanding, it goes a long way towards validating your review as a real and honest one.

Real Word of Mouth will take down any reviews, and disable any accounts, that violate these guidelines. When we take action like that, we will attempt to notify the person who reviewed, via email or our web interface, to give her/him a chance to fix the issue or to argue back in case we’re getting it wrong. Where someone repeatedly violates the guidelines, we may restrict, suspend, or terminate the account.

We will do our best to be abundantly clear and consistent in enforcing these rules, to be open and honest about it, and to honor the guidelines in their implementation. Of course, as our lawyerly besties have advised us to state explicitly, we reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, our community guidelines in our sole discretion. These rules create no duty or contractual obligation for us to take any particular action.

The reviews posted on Real Word of Mouth are individual opinions. The opinions expressed in reviews are those of Real Word of Mouth members and not of Real Word of Mouth.

Contact Us

Email your inquiries, comments, suggestions or panic-stricken pleas for help to:

[email protected]

See our FAQ for answers to common questions and issues.

Our mailing address:

Word of Mouth, Inc.

1325 Howard Avenue, #906

Burlingame, CA 94010

USA

Phone: +1 (650) 762-9882

URL: https://www.realwordofmouth.com/

Partner With Us

We partner with thought leaders and first movers in the Real Estate industry to attack big problems. We are always on the lookout for innovative ways to work with fellow entrepreneurs, designers, startups, enterprises, and investors. Reach out to us at [email protected].