Ratings and reviews can heavily impact purchasing decisions, and positive reviews help to create trust in local businesses.

How Can I Find my Community's Rating?

Chatmeter is a great resource that aggregates all online feedback and reviews for each community. Click here to read more about monitoring reviews on Chatmeter.

Best Practices for Receiving Yelp & Google Reviews

Verbally ASK for reviews. A simple request to happy residents and prospects can lead to an increase in overall ratings.

1. For Yelp, tell residents to “check in” before posting a review. This will let Yelp know that they are legitimate resident, which will make their review less likely to be filtered from results.
   • Click here to learn more about filtered reviews.
2. Have your maintenance team carry door hangers after completing a service request to encourage residents to leave a Yelp or Google review. This approach has proven to be successful across the Essex portfolio.
   • Reach out to marketing@essex.com if you are in need of collateral. 
3. Have your team include Yelp and/or Google icons in their email signature so that residents and prospects may easily leave feedback.
   • Reach out to marketing@essex.com for the most recent logos.

Avoid the Following

1. Never provide incentives (i.e. gift cards, prizes, contests) in exchange for reviews. This is against Yelp’s policy, which can lead to negative repercussions. 
2. Never write your own reviews or ask friends, family, or other employees to write positive reviews.
3. Never make residents or prospects feel pressured into leaving reviews.
4. Do not ask for reviews via email or other electronic communication.