This is the second in a series of blog posts about how multifamily businesses can build and maintain a strong online reputation. In case you missed it, check out the first blog post here.

Online reviews are a numbers game. It’s about recency, frequency, quality and quantity of reviews. To help illustrate this, think about the following scenario. Would you rather rent from a property that has a 5-star rating and only a handful of reviews or a property with a 4.2-star rating and hundreds of reviews.

Research shows that 76% of consumers will read up to 6 reviews before making a decision on which product/service to move forward with. While the overall number of reviews might not have as much of an impact as it did in the past, it’s important to continually collect reviews to ensure your reputation is representative of the current experience at your properties. This can be done through email or text campaigns, or even in person after your site teams do something that delights the resident.

When asking residents for reviews, it’s important to ask them to be as detailed as possible because that feedback will not only be valuable to you as you try and improve your properties, but it will also be more helpful to prospective residents as they research where to live. Beyond that, as mentioned previously, make sure you respond to every review, regardless of whether they’re positive or negative. This shows you are actively listening and engaged with residents.

Timing is everything

Requesting reviews from all of your residents might seem like a daunting task, but there are tools available that simplify the process. Look for a platform that automates the request for reviews from your residents, based on a timed correlation between an experience and the ask for feedback. Timing is everything in driving content volume, and automating that process is the key to generating review volume. Below are some suggestions for when you should ask residents to leave a review

After a good experience. One surefire way to build up a library of positive reviews is training site staff to ask for a review after delivering a positive experience. This is where having a property management solution in place that makes it easy for both staff to send a request and for reviews and for residents to leave them comes in handy, especially if it’s as easy as sending a text message. The key is making the ask when the positive experience is still top of mind to the resident. The longer you wait the less likely it is for residents to click through and leave a review.

Following a tour. Ask prospects to leave feedback on your property after a tour is completed. You should trigger a text or email to be sent automatically subsequent to the completion of the tour.

Post move-in. Once the resident has had the time to settle into their new apartment, trigger a review request to gather feedback about amenities and their initial thoughts of the community. __ Completion of maintenance work order.__ Finally, after the maintenance team marks a work order complete, you should have them send an invitation to leave a review about the service provided.

The Entrata difference

Entrata ReptationAdviser has all the tools your properties will need to properly build and manage your online reputation.

Respond in a timely manner Respond to reviews based on your criteria and the engagement strategy that you set, not Regeneric rules that don’t apply to your business This allows you to prioritize responses based on that criteria to ensure critical posts (i.e. negative reviews or comments that are detrimental to your business) are responded to first.

Ensure brand clarity Only provide access to respond to specific individuals trained on your brand voice and messaging to ensure the messages you send are consistent.

Consolidated dashboard Post to all of your social media accounts and respond to reviews from one dashboard.

Multi-property reporting within 24 hours of post Stay on top of all the important conversations happening about your business online all from one easy to use dashboard. __ Build your reputation on the sites that matter most__ Solicit reviews using Entrata Message Center by creating email campaigns to residents living at your properties and focus on the review sites that are most important to residents like Google.

Learn more

To learn more about how Entrata ReuptationAdvisor can improve the online reputation at each of your communities, request a demo today.