Your company reputation is one of the most important factors for an owner to hire a property management company. Owners will factor that in much more than price to ensure a peace of mind. When building that reputation it can be a challenge to get those first couple of reviews and then continuing to build those review numbers to stay relevant in Google Map Search.
Over the years we have seen plenty of clients try to trick google by using “black hat” methods to increase their review numbers and star rating. Here are a list of Reputation Mistakes that can potentially be banned from Google Business.
Review Stuffing: We see that clients will try to get other Property Manager Friends or Friends of the company to flood their Google reviews with basic type of reviews. While you might get away with this a few times, if it is consistent Google’s algorithm will catch on and will either remove those reviews or worse suspend your Google Business Account. This is considered Fake Engagement under Google’s Policy.
Purchasing Reviews: There are companies out there who you can pay to leave reviews to help boost ratings. These are the quickest ones to get flagged by Google as they are usually left by the same Google account which can easily be tracked and flagged. The account leaving and receiving those reviews can easily be suspended.
Leaving Bad Reviews on Competitors: We have send in the past Property Managers to try to drive down a competitors reputation by leaving bad reviews. Not only is this immoral and unprofessional but also a fast way to make enemies in the Property Management Industry but can also get you suspended on Google.
Not commenting on Reviews: Whether a review is good or bad the Property Management company should ALWAYS comment on the review. These comments help legitimize your business as well as show any viewers how you handle business. These responses should always be unique in content and genuine, DO NOT COPY/PASTE the same response to each review.
Pressuring reviews from your clients: We encourage our clients to reach out to both owner and tenants for reviews. The best time to do this is right after move in, as this is both a happy time for both Tenants and Owners. If they decide not to leave review, do not continue to pressure them to do so, this comes of as unprofessional and could ultimately lead to a bad review.
Delay: When either asking for a review and replying to a review do not wait too long, as the more you wait the more irrelevant the review becomes. These timely responses and reviews build trust on google.
