How to Get More Positive Apartment Reviews

Does your apartment community suffer from too few or just bad reviews? With 90% of consumers turning to online reviews to impact their purchase decisions, your apartment community can’t afford to turn a blind eye to your reviews. We all know that online reputation can directly impact leads , but many are at a loss as to how to improve or manage reviews. We can help you get the star ratings your community deserves with these simple apartment reputation management tips.

6 Tips for Positive Apartment Reviews

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

We’ve heard that many property managers are afraid to ask for reviews directly. But little do they know that 70% of people would leave a review if asked. Help your on-site team by adding in a request for reviews at the end of property tours or at move-out. There’s no harm in asking.

Create a Review Station

If your community has a business center or co-working space, change the background of the computers to include information about leaving a review. Take it a step further by making the home page of every browser a review site.

Provide your office staff with an iPad or small computer to encourage reviews after great property tours or when a resident visits the office.

Include Reviews on Your Social Media

Use your social media accounts as another platform for asking reviews. Make it easy for residents by adding a link in the post or in your bio. Then use those positive reviews as social proof of how fabulous your community is.

Add Review Links Where You Can

There are numerous ways current and prospective renters engage with you online. Improve your ratings and review counts by placing review links everywhere you can, like staff email signatures, website home page, resident portal, and social media pages. Make it easy for residents to find and click on your review links.

Don’t know how to create a review link? We’ve got you! Here we show you how to create a share a Google review link.

Incentivize Residents to Leave Online Reviews

Encourage residents to leave reviews with small incentives, like a $5 gift card to your local coffee shop. However, we advise everyone to provide the incentive even if the review is positive or negative. Only rewarding positive reviews will show a clear bias and will make your community appear less trustworthy. But don’t worry, we have you covered with negative reviews.

Have a Plan Against Negative Reviews

Properly managing negative reviews is just as important as getting positive reviews. But negative reviews are a tough cookie. The law, and Google, actually protects consumers who leave bad reviews, so trying to get them taken down is an uphill battle.

We all know the obvious too. Good customer service, happy residents, quickly performed maintenance requests, and fair rent prices are the best ways to prevent bad reviews. But the reality is that bad reviews will happen – even to the best of teams. That’s why having a plan in place to address one, two, or even three-star reviews is crucial.

Now when it comes to negative reviews, we live by one and only one rule – “take the conversation offline.” When people post negative reviews online, they are pretty upset, angry, or even looking for attention as a means to solve their problem. Respond to the review by empathizing with their problem, even if you don’t, and provide an email address or phone number of someone they can speak with directly.

Not only is this giving you one more opportunity to change their opinion of the situation, but you’re also showing prospective renters that you take negative feedback seriously. And if you’re really lucky – that negative review might turn into a positive one.

At the end of the day, generating positive reviews for your apartment community comes down to just two things – make it easy, and don’t be afraid to ask. If you know you go above and beyond for your residents, then ask them to show the love online. Chances are they will be more than happy to sing your praises, they just need a push in the right direction.

If you need help apartment reputation management, contact the REPLI team today! We’ve partner with reputation.com to offer review and local listing management to multifamily communities across the US.