{"id":96854,"date":"2020-02-19T17:00:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T00:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=96854"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:49:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:49:34","slug":"tenants-testimonials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/tenants-testimonials","title":{"rendered":"How to Boost Your Business by Asking Tenants for Testimonials"},"content":{"rendered":"

This strategy is part of a series of automation projects we\u2019ve completed in our buy and hold real estate business. I\u2019m going to walk you through how we\u2019ve automated the process of asking for testimonials from current tenants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Get Reviews<\/h2>\n

Reviews and testimonials are key to any business with an online presence. When buying a widget from a site like Amazon, I\u2019m sure that you feel more confident buying from a seller with a large number of high reviews compared to a seller with a low (or no) rating. You\u2019re probably willing to pay a little more to the established seller.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing groundbreaking, right? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We need positive reviews and testimonials on various sites to convince strangers that they\u2019re in good hands if they do business with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if We Get Negative Reviews?<\/h2>\n

These can get under my skin. Not so much because of the content, but because they\u2019re typically left by ex-tenants we\u2019ve recently evicted, almost exclusively due to non-payment of rent. You\u2019re not able to change or delete the review, but in most cases, you can leave a comment. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most effective strategy we\u2019ve seen is just drowning out the negative reviews with tons of positive ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to achieve this, we\u2019ve relied on them coming in organically or have manually asked for positive reviews from current tenants a couple of times a year. It\u2019s one of those important but non-urgent tasks that seems to get pushed aside or forgotten though. So, it\u2019s ripe for automation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong>\u00a03 Technologies Changing the Way Landlords Manage Rental Properties<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How to Get Reviews Automatically<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve recently implemented a script that emails current tenants at the six-month mark of their residency. It asks how they would describe their experience with us. There are two links in the email: one positive and one negative.<\/span><\/p>\n

If they click the positive link, they\u2019re directed to our website where they can leave a review on our BBB, Google, or Facebook pages. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If they click the negative link, they\u2019re taken to a private survey, hosted as a Google form, where they can leave some feedback as to why they\u2019re having a poor experience with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0<\/strong>4 Ways Technology Is Shaking Up Commercial Real Estate (& Why Multifamily Will Pull Ahead)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

(A quick aside: we also automatically email new tenants a survey on the third day of their residency, asking about our leasing process and how we can improve.)<\/span><\/p>\n

To encourage more tenants to leave reviews, you may want to consider giving some kind of incentive. Maybe this is a rent credit of $5 to $10, waiving or discounting late fees for a given month, or entering all entries into a contest for an iPad or an upgrade for their home. <\/span><\/p>\n

Even a well-written email without incentives describing the importance of reviews for your business can be enough. Some sites will discourage the use of monetary incentives in exchange for reviews, so just keep that in mind. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you plan to improve your testimonial-gathering process?<\/em><\/p>\n

Share your thoughts below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obtaining positive reviews and testimonials from your best customers on a consistent basis is important but rarely done in our industry. Consider automating the process to ensure it gets done without interrupting everything else you have going on. Here’s how.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":115391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-business-management"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}