Operators need to be careful about how often they incentivize property reviews.
Making Sure Renters Can Rely on Property Reviews
I recently caught up with a colleague from the West Coast. Due to the high cost of living in their area, they’ve been renting for years. Unprompted, they went on a rant about their rental experiences: “Ugh, I wish there was a Fakespot for apartment reviews. I’m sick and tired of going to all the effort of moving only to find out how bad the property management is in my new house [aka unit]. You can’t trust anything you see online anymore. It’s just a bunch of promoted posts.”
Renters Seek Authenticity
My friend has a point. How authentic are reviews if you’re always offering freebies, gift cards, raffle prizes, etc. to get those 5 stars? Yes, the FTC banned incentivizing positive reviews. However, you can still legally incentivize reviews as long as you do not request reviews of a certain sentiment. We know from social psychology that when someone gives you a gift, you feel obligated to return the favor. As a result, incentivized reviews will likely lean towards a positive sentiment. The ban may eliminate fake reviews, but it may not eliminate inauthentic ones.
While property owners and managers want properties to show well online, they must also be authentic. Vanessa Van Edwards in her book, Captivate, shared that the No. 1 habit that annoys people the most is inauthenticity.
Why am I bringing all of this up? Because I did a sentiment analysis of comments from ORM solutions (where residents leave online, public reviews) compared to resident satisfaction surveys (where residents share internal, private feedback with management). I focused on maintenance, as that was a commonality measured on both platforms. Year-to-date, there was a significant disparity between the results.
Maintenance comments for ORM solutions showed a Positive to Very Positive average sentiment. On the other hand, resident surveys were Neutral on average. In other words, how residents really feel is a whopping two hops away from what they’re showing online! They feel Neutral about maintenance, and yet in online reviews, they’re saying they feel almost Very Positive.
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Providing a More Holistic Picture
This data comparison reveals two important takeaways. First, operators need to be careful about how often they incentivize reviews, including moderating how many are promoted so that prospects can see honest feedback. In fact, 72% of buyers want to see negative reviews. It may be counterintuitive, but some bad reviews are a good thing! Bad reviews give property managers an opportunity to turn a negative situation into a positive one. And when renters don’t see negative reviews, the property will fail their internal lie-detector test. They will quickly resume their online search for more trustworthy properties.
Second, this isn’t a suggestion to avoid managing online reviews; teams still need to ensure that properties are painted in a positive light. This simply means that online reviews can’t be trusted to give a complete picture of a property’s performance. Resident surveys and an ORM solution are both needed. Having the combination of public and private feedback from residents can help gut-check a property’s performance.
By having a more thoughtful approach to achieving accurate online reviews — that aren’t overly incentivized and include the negative too — operators can paint a more accurate picture for both management teams and future residents alike.
Source: Rental Housing Journal
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