1 Way to Stop Negative Property Management Reviews: Eliminate the Barrier to Feedback Or Pay the Penalty On Yelp, Google, Etc.

Most property management businesses have a barrier in place that prevents valuable feedback, makes you unaware of issues, and drives customers to complain on Yelp or Google. Learn how this barrier gets created & what to do about it.

How / Why the Barrier Exists

As business owners we can’t do it all. Initially, many property managers start out doing everything all by their lonesome. Eventually as you grow you eventually need to get your first employee.

In order to get more work done and in order to use your front-line staff you need to adjust a few things. These steps might include:

• A phone system or a receptionist
• Changing your personal cell phone number
• Put systems in place
• Get an office with your own door

Why Is this a Problem?

This becomes a barrier to getting useful feedback. Now your customer largely deals with your front-line staff. If they are upset or frustrated you are no longer likely to hear about it. You are less aware of your staff and what they are doing. The customer then doesn’t have a voice so they go to other channels such as Yelp or Google.  This can be quite costly for your business.

Suppose a property management contract on average makes you $1000/year. Then say you can keep them on average for just 5 years. That would be an average $5000/contract. So if a negative review costs you just 3 possible clients, then you would be missing out on $15,000. That review cost you $15,000 and continues to hurt you as long as it exists.

How Do You Fix The Problem?

So how do we eliminate this barrier to useful feedback, without taking down the necessary systems and processes you need in order to get work done?

One tool we came up with to do this is GatherKudos. We had property managers in mind when we created GatherKudos. It allows upset customers a method to give direct feedback, capture more positive feedback on review sites, & is only $29/month (far less than $15,000).

The real takeaway is this: come up with system that allows upset customers an obvious & easy way to bypass your front-line staff and offer direct feedback.

Benefits of Feedback

Do this and you will find you dramatically lessen the negative reviews. You will then be mare aware of how your staff are viewed by your customers. Then you can improve your business to lessen the likelihood of getting negative reviews.

Other Ideas to Improve Your Reputation?

Eliminating the barrier to feedback is only one tactic to dealing with negative reviews. Check out our free ebook 13 Rockstar Tips to Get Reviews That Don’t Suck, which you can get at GatherKudos.com