Announcing the Q2 Reputation Management Leaderboard

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Q2 2020 HIGHLIGHTS

During the month of June, nearly 100 properties were transitioned to a new internal management process for reputation management as part of a pilot program to fully transition all reputation management to the Essex communications team as of July 1, 2020.
As part of reputation management best practices, all communities should now strive for an all-time score of at least 4.0
June 2020 had the highest number of reviews in the quarter for Essex on Yelp and Google with 335 reviews and an average score of 3.5
On March 20, Google temporarily disabled new reviews and the ability to respond to reviews until further notice due to COVID-19. All reviews received during the suspension period (March/April) were released and published by Google at the beginning of May, resulting in a 56% increase in reviews in May and a 91% increase in reviews in June.
Compared to Q1 Leaderboard, our Q2 overall score dropped from 3.8 to 3.5. The number of overall reviews decreased from 1,108 to 800.

Q1 AND Q2 REPUTATION LANDSCAPE

As of 7/1/2020

High-Ranked – 42% of the Essex portfolio has an aggregated score of 4.0 or higher from the last two quarters on Yelp and Google (January 1, 2020 – June 30, 2020).There is no increase or decrease in this number from combined scores in Q4 and Q1
Upgraders – 29% of the Essex portfolio showed a marked improvement with an 11% or higher increase in their score compared to the Q1 leaderboard. This represents a 11% decrease from combined scores in Q4 and Q1
Low-Ranked – 17% of the portfolio has an aggregated score of less than 3.0 from the last two quarters on Yelp and Google (January 1, 2020 – June 30, 2020). This represents a 1% decrease from combined scores from Q4 and Q1

LEADERBOARD
Here are the list of highest, lowest, and upgrader-ranked communities across the portfolio. The full Q2 Leaderboard Results can be viewed HERE.

TIPS AND BEST PRACTICES
As a general best practice, all communities should strive to:

Continue to provide the best possible experience for our residents and prospects
Ask happy prospects and residents to write a review Analyze the topics on which negative feedback is being received—e.g., curb appeal, customer service, noise
Are there any immediate changes that could be made to prevent similar feedback in the future—e.g., property walks, training, community policy reminder?
Reach out to residents who posted negative reviews and attempt to remedy any concerns
If you are able to come to a resolution and feel it’s appropriate, ask the resident if they would be willing to change their review based on this recent experience
Proactively communicate with residents about any updates or happenings at your community, such as temporary amenity closures, construction, policy changes, new staff.
Achieve an all-time aggregated reputation score of at least 4.0
Regularly check in on review scores and feedback on your Google and Yelp pages

Click here for more information on tips and best practices.

We encourage Community Managers to use Chatmeter to see and review your reputation scores regularly. The information below can be viewed by clicking on the “Reviews” tab, selecting the dates you would like to see reviews for, and narrowing down the providers to Yelp and Google. Click here to learn more about Chatmeter.

If you have any questions, please contact marketing@essex.com.

Monday, July 13, 2020 - 13:16

Last updated:
September 28, 2020