Attention: All On-Site Associates

We're pleased to announce some great news in the field of Essex's portfolio-wide online reputation results. Here are the details:

Q1 2020 Highlights

• February 2020 was a record-breaking month for Essex on Yelp and Google with 438 reviews and an average score of 3.88
• As part of reputation management best practices, all communities should now strive for an all-time score of at least 4.0
• We want to recognize all the hard work that went into the company’s reputation during Q1 as there was marked improvement across the portfolio compared to the previous leaderboard
• As of March 20th, Google temporarily disabled new reviews and the ability to respond to reviews until further notice due to COVID-19

Q4 and Q1 Reputation Landscape

As of 4/1/2020

• 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 (October 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020)
  • This represents a 6% increase from January's benchmark
• Upgraders – 40% of the Essex portfolio showed a marked improvement with an 11% or higher increase in their score compared to the Q4 leaderboard
  • This represents a 13% increase from January’s benchmark
• Low-Ranked – 18% of the portfolio has an aggregated score of less than 3.0 from the last two quarters on Yelp and Google (October 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020)
  • This represents a 10% decrease from January’s benchmark

Leaderboard

Here are the lists of highest, lowest, and upgrader-ranked communities across the portfolio and with the full leaderboard below.

.
.

.
.

.

Complete Leaderboard:

*Note that if a cell is empty, that means no reviews were received during that time.

Q1 Reputation Management Leaderboard

.

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.
• Simply ask happy prospects and residents to write a review.
• Own negative reviews: 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., a property walk, 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—e.g., 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 in Chatmeter.

For more information on tips and best practices, visit this link on Buzz: http://buzz.essex.com/department/operational-services/tips-and-best-practices-online-reviews.

Using Chatmeter

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 October 1, 2019 – March 31, 2020, and narrowing down the providers to Yelp and Google. Click here to learn more about Chatmeter.

Please direct questions to marketing@essex.com.