Online reviews are incredibly important to your property management company, and incentivizing your reviews can be good or bad and positive or negative. They can help or hurt your online reputation.
We want to tell you about the best way to incentivize your reviews and what you should absolutely avoid.
Don’t Do This: Incentivizing Your Clients
A real no-no is incentivizing your clients. Sure, you want heaps of good reviews, but you don’t want to give the impression that you’re paying for them.
How does this happen?
Maybe you offered your clients a corker of an incentive like money, gifts, or freebies. It probably seems harmless, but it can actually hurt your reputation. It makes you less authentic and credible.
It can also backfire.
What if someone writes a public review saying that you tried to pay them or offer them something in exchange for a good review? Now, you’ve got a negative review posted and everyone will question whether your positive reviews are real. They’ll suspect you paid for those, too.
Prospective owners who read that one claim that you tried to pay for a good review will not want to work with you. They won’t be eager to put their largest investment into your hands for management because they won’t think you’re credible.
A Better Idea: Incentivize Your Staff
A great way to drum up those online reviews is by incentivizing your staff. You can provide motivation to your team that will lead to better reviews – and more of them.
Give your employees a reason to ask for more reviews. These will be authentic reviews that owners will recognize as being true. You protect your reputation and increase your business.
To get your staff ready to ask for more reviews, do these things:
- First, establish a budget. Decide how much you want to spend on your staff while moving them towards asking for more reviews. Break it down into how much you’re willing to spend on each positive review.
- Decide how you want to incentivize your staff. Perhaps it’s by granting them extra holiday time. Or, you could give them a gift card.
Benefits of Staff Incentives
This will help your staff become more involved and invested in your property management company’s online reputation. When you can motivate them to ask your clients for reviews, you’re accomplishing two important things.
One – you’re earning more positive online reviews.
Two – you’re giving your team an excellent reason to increase their value and provide really outstanding customer experiences. They’ll want to do a good job in order to earn those good reviews.
Build the online reputation of your property management company by gaining more reviews and encouraging your staff to reach out to owners and tenants for feedback. It keeps you authentic and protects you against angry clients who may feel used if you try to incentivize them for positive reviews.
We hope this has been some good oil for growing your property management company. If you have questions about online reputation management, please contact us at Fourandhalf.
