Priyanka Agarwal and her team have responded to over half a million online reviews for multifamily communities. Through her years of industry experience, she has identified key skills for maintaining her clients’ reputation and improving resident satisfaction. Listen in to glean insights regarding trends in online reviews, how to respond effectively, and how to embrace the information provided within reviews to help grow your company.
“Online reviews are really the proof in the pudding, and the pudding here is the customer service…your attitude towards your residents."
Mindy Price and Priyanka Agarwal begin this episode by discussing the latest trends that Priyanka and her team have observed among online reviews. When it comes to positive reviews, the praise often stems from great customer service, which indicates how significant it is to consider your residents’ day-to-day lives and work to take care of even the smallest of hurdles. In terms of negative feedback, there has been an increasing trend towards intense, sensitive reviews that can be extremely vicious in nature.
Priyanka offers tips for responding to such reviews. She reiterates the Four P’s for responses—professional, personalized, polite, and prudent—and stresses the need to take a breath, gather information from the property teams regarding what happened, and craft a response that encourages the reviewer to take the conversation offline. In every response, it is important to remember that it is not only the reviewer who is reading the reply, but also prospective residents.
Priyanka also emphasizes the great opportunities that online reviews provide for management companies, as these reviews are truly a snapshot of your customer service. With current staffing shortages and the idea of virtual offices as a potential wave of the future, companies need to remember that there is no substitute for customer service and need to balance automation and human touch. By being proactive in order to identify areas in need of improvement and communicate transparently with residents, the Three R’s—ratings, renewals, and referrals—are sure to follow.
Topics: Podcast
For more than 35 years, Joseph Batdorf has contributed to the multifamily industry with his entrepreneurship and vision to introduce path-breaking solutions that directly impact a company’s bottom line.
In 2003, Joseph Batdorf partnered with experts in marketing research to co-found J Turner Research. The company offers customer insights that empower multifamily companies to advance their business. With its extensive portfolio of products - survey programs and online reputation assessment (ORA™) score, J Turner Research enables clients to enhance customer satisfaction, increase closing ratios, improve online reputation, and optimize resources. J Turner Research surveys more than 170,000 residents and prospects and tracks the online reputation of more than 59,000 properties nationwide, across all review sites on a monthly basis.
In his role as J Turner Research’s president, Batdorf oversees the company’s strategic growth. He has been engaged as a panelist and presenter in the industry for several years. Batdorf’s various speaking engagements include presenting in the 2009, 2010, 2012 NAA Education Conference, 2010 NAA Student Housing Conference, and participating as a panelist for the Multifamily Executive’s General Session on Concept Community for five consecutive years since 2012. He currently serves on the Houston Better Government Fund. Batdorf graduated from the Michigan State University.
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