ApartmentRatings.com-To Respond or Not to Respond

What is everyone's opinion on paying the fee ($280) to become a registered manager with ApartmentRatings.com? Is it worth paying the fee to be able to respond to resident complaints and to manage the property's profile information? I believe that complaint resolution and information transparency are important, but are manager responses effective enough? If not, what could we do to make manager responses more effective? How can we turn ApartmentRatings.com into a positive marketing resource? Thoughts/comments/ideas?

Here is a link to Lisa Trosien and Mike Whaling #aptchat every Friday on twitter. The link is to the transcript of the whole discussion.

wthashtag.com/transcript.php?page_id=224...amp;export_type=HTML

That should get you started. Last week's topic was all about apartment ratings and how to manage them and use them effectively.

I am sure you will get a lot of other thoughts on this topic from numerous professionals

Here's my thoughts. www.theapartmentnerd.com/2009/08/when-wa...t-real-job-gary.html

Mark,

I enjoyed reading your blog regarding replies to ratings. Lissa, thanks for posting this question.

To piggy back on Lissa's question "what are your thoughts on paying the fee of $280..." Is this a fair price? Should we have to pay to participate when Yelp.com allows free responses? Would it be a better strategy to direct traffic to Yelp instead? I would love to hear feedback here.

In addition, I'd like to hear from folks who work for fee management companies? Are you talking to your owners about user generated content and the impact it has on our industry? How do you begin this conversation?

To good conversation,

MR

Thanks everyone, for your responses!! I completely agree that all posts should be responded to. I think it empowers our managers and shows that we're being proactive.

I am just now having to deal with this on Yelp where we have recently recieved two scathing reviews....and after the initial irritation at tenants not understanding the management's position, it has really helped us to look at the situation through thier eyes.
Yes, we followed the lease yes, many of our actions were misinterprited and yes, many of the situations mentioned were, at mimimum, not the whole story, but the perception of our tenants ends up being that "we just don't care".

Realizing this and acknowledging thier perceptions in such a public manner, is empowering and lets others who read the reviews know that we are paying attention.

My goal is to follow the law, follow the lease and to let our residents know that we can see things from thier point of view even if we can't do everything in the way they want us to.

@ Carrie: You nailed it ... every response shows future readers that you're listening, and there's a good chance your response will lessen the impact of a negative review.

@ Lissa: I would say pay the fee if you're really interested in creating a better profile there (which you probably are). If you just want to respond to posts, you don't necessarily need to pay, but you should be very clear in how you identify yourself and your relationship to the property. Even better, I like Melissa's idea - put your Yelp link front and center, and direct the reviews there. Yelp is much more business-friendly (and free).

Always appreciate a plug for the Apartment Chat ... thanks for all your support, Jonathan!

Carrie,

Thanks for posting. I too am just beginning to become more involved in monitoring and responding to these posts. What are your thoughts about responding to review sites or twitter posts by residents who use foul and offensive language? We have a very angry resident in Texas who has tweeted more than once about our company and we're not sure we want to converse as this person appears to be out of control.

Chime in everyone. I'd love your thoughts on responding to the foul mouthed residents.

Melissa

That's tough...while I do think it is important to acknowledge all public feedback, foul and offensive language can be hard to take. A nicely worded response can possibly nip in the bud...or not...
Something short and to the point like "We take all feedback from our residents seriously and have discussed this review with our management team. We regret that your experience was less that what you had hoped." and I would leave it at that....definitely not getting into any type of argument.

I would love to know how it goes!