Being a property manager, your job largely involves working with a wide variety of people on a regular basis. From tenants to property owners to contractors, there are countless people who will interact with you and your business over the course of your career.
This means that even the best property management companies may encounter the dreaded negative online review from a client or tenant.
Online reviews on platforms like Google My Business and Yelp play an important role in how your business is perceived by new prospective customers. Many people base their decisions on other people’s previous experiences with a company.
While positive reviews will obviously go a long way in boosting your company’s online presence, negative ones can hurt your business. If your negative online reviews go unaddressed, they may end up scaring new clients and tenants away, which will overall be a huge detriment to your business.
So, what exactly should you do when your business gets an online review from a less-than-happy client or tenant? In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to handle these reviews in a professional way that, if done right, may even turn your negative reviews into positive ones.
How to Deal with Negative Reviews in 8 Steps
1. Take the Time to Understand the Problem
In order to effectively handle a negative review for your property management company, you must take the time to understand where the unhappy client or tenant is coming from, and what they are upset about. When you get feedback, we recommend reading it thoroughly and understanding what exactly the problem is.
For example, is the complaint about lack of hot water? Increased rent? Noisy neighbors? These are legitimate complaints! So it’s important to get to the root of the problem before reacting to the review.
Then, you must determine whether the complaint is based on facts or if it is an exaggeration or distortion of the situation. Regardless of the nature of the review, simply acknowledging the reviewer’s experience and feelings can do wonders to settle the situation and show prospective tenants and clients that you care about their needs.
2. Inform the Rental Property Owners
One of the biggest mistakes that any property manager can make is failing to keep property owners up to date on what has been going on with their investments. This includes bad property management reviews.
If you don’t keep property owners in the loop, it could seem like you are trying to hide your mistakes, making you seem untrustworthy. This means that as soon as you notice a negative online review of your property management company, you must report it to the owner of the property.
Then, you can tell them your plans regarding how you will take care of the issue.
3. Respond to the Review Professionally and Quickly
When it comes to a negative review, the main thing that many prospective clients look for is how you have responded. Did you reply with something unprofessional or rude? Did you write off their feelings? Did you ignore them altogether? Or did you take the time to write a gracious and understanding response that helps to rectify the situation?
Your public responses to negative reviews speak volumes about how you treat your clients and tenants. If you respond quickly and professionally to negative reviews, it will show others that you care about your client’s experiences and feelings and that you will do anything possible to make it right.
4. Take the Conversation Offline
When you are dealing with a negative review for your property management company, you want to respond to the reviewer with a desire to learn more about the situation and how you can help resolve the issue. This means inviting them to contact you directly so that you can work with them further to make it right.
This will help you to avoid having a potential back-and-forth argument public for any prospective clients to see. Getting publicly involved in an argument online will only hurt your online reputation and taint people’s image of your brand.
5. Take a Preventative Approach
Over the course of your career as a property manager, it is inevitable that somebody you work with will give you a negative review online. This is just the nature of the business! This is why it is crucial to have a proactive approach to handling these reviews.
One way that you can do this is to run an online search for the properties you manage and your company name on a regular basis in order to see what people are saying when they talk about your business.
A more effective way to do this is to set up a social media or Google alert that will notify you every time someone mentions your company’s name online. This will help you catch negative online reviews immediately as they happen.
6. Acknowledge Any Problems That Your Company May Have
While many negative reviews can be based on exaggerated or distorted descriptions of a situation, sometimes they may have some validity to them. It is important to know the difference, and acknowledge when you or your team may have made a mistake.
If the situation was not fully in your control, make sure to give the tenant or client context to help them understand that you did everything you could to try and remedy the issue. However, do your best to avoid making excuses and offer a sincere apology.
7. Offer to Resolve the Problem
So, let’s say the complaint in the review was in fact due to a mistake on you or your team’s part. What should you do next? We recommend doing everything in your power to make it right and offer to fix any issue that your company may have caused. This can go a long way in building a rapport with your clients and future customers.
For example, if your tenants went a long time with a leaky faucet or a broken door handle, try offering a small discount on rent for the next month to make it up to them.
8. Do Your Best to Convert Negative Reviews into Positive Ones
After you and the upset reviewer have reached an amicable solution to the problem, you may ask them to either remove the review or post a positive follow-up detailing how the company was able to rectify the situation. If they end up agreeing, then you will have succeeded in turning a negative review into a positive one.
This will show prospective clients that you and your company value customer service and put your clients and tenants’ experiences first. We are confident that this will leave a lasting positive impression on anyone who reads through your company’s reviews.
Negative Reviews: Bottom Line
As a property manager, you should always want to give everyone that you work with an excellent experience with your company, but inevitably, you will be faced with a negative review.
By following these steps, we hope that you will be able to handle these unfortunate reviews with professionalism and grace, maybe even turning a negative experience into a positive one.
If you have any other questions on the best ways to handle a negative review of your property management company, contact our team at Blanket today.
