How do you encourage your clients to give 5 star reviews and positive testimonials?

We have touched on this subject briefly in another stream where we were looking at Rate My Agent. I think the general consensus is that Google Reviews are the way to go :grinning:

I really believe that the key to getting consistent, positive testimonials is your process when an opportunity to ask for one is recognized.

For some team members, it is difficult to “just ask” for a review, particularly if they are a bit reserved and shy and then the followup if the client says yes, but never does it, is also nerve-racking.

When I was in sales about 100 years ago, I used the “one day, one week, one month” approach. I would call the day after settlement to check in, even though I had seen them the day before, then a week later to see how many boxes they had unpacked, etc. At this point, I would usually find out if things hadn’t gone as smoothly as they should have - the water feature pump isn’t working or only one of the garage remotes work - that kind of thing. This gave me an opportunity to fix the problem so that they loved me even more. Then I would call a month later to find out how the kids were settling in, etc and during that call, I would ask for the testimonial. I always offered to send them an example of what I was after so that if they weren’t particularly comfortable with writing, they had a template of sorts. This approach worked a treat for me. I just scheduled the calls - easy peasy.

I’m really keen to hear what works for others.

@gemmaattlesey I know you have a process around your surveys, are you happy to share?

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This is an awesome topic @terrihandy with customer reviews on everyone’s minds. I have worked with some offices that use NPS. Every client that rates them 9 or 10, automatically gets an email sent asking them for a google review and including the link for them.

Keen to hear what others are doing.

Hi Terri

Yes we do have a process and happy to share!

Firstly, you are right, being able to recognize the opportunity to ask for one is a big thing. We have some staff that are comfortable in asking for one very early in the relationship because they know that they have built that rapport almost instantaneously.

What we have found works really well for us is surveying both our landlords and tenants straight after the leasing process. We ask questions around how did they find the open for inspection (we have Saturday leasing staff so always good to get feedback on them too), how they signed their lease (online or in office), how they found the condition report, how they found the communication from our PMs and also a comment field for feedback to the directors.

This is an opportunity for us to capture any potential break down in the relationship I.e. didnt agree with the CR, before they take to google or Facebook etc.

Regardless of the survey being positive or negative, we will contact them once recieved.

If positive we will call them and thank them for their feedback, the PM would ask if the client didnt mind could they pop a quick review up on google, and then follow up the request with an email.

If negative we will call them to work through their concerns. Because it happens straight after the leasing process we can capture and fix anything quickly to ensure the relationship doesnt sour.

We were actually surprised how many people do complete the surveys when we first started them. Now it forms a part of our weekly PM meeting where we read out the surveys from the week and action accordingly. It’s been a great ‘review’ tool for us!

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Thanks for sharing @gemmaattlesey it sounds like a very efficient plan. You mentioned some of the team are happy to ask and even early in the relationship. How do you get the others to make the followup calls and ask the question?

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@Mark will you share the Wendell Process we have done in the past, and what works to stay at 5* google reviews?

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Hi @adam,
Yes, it can be challenging sometimes but once we receive the survey the PMs are happy to call at that point to thank them for their feedback and ask if they would be happy to review them online.

We also have a script that they can use if they are unsure and a follow up email to send after the phone conversation with links to our google & facebook pages.

Thanks!

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@terrihandy I love the “one day, one week, one month” thats awesome!! @jodie.stainton had a similar concept where you dont send them everything just before the sign up and introduce items throughout the first month of the tenancy to reduce the stress on the TT moving. Anywayyyy
Our PM’s all recieved training on how to ask for reviews, its also a requirement to ask for a review after they vacate & its a part of their KPIs. Its amazing how many reviews come through from just asking. Obviously if its a shit tenant we dont ask for one at all.
We also ask all the clients who give us a +10 NPS for a review because we know they are already happy.
@gemmaattlesey I love how you do it as well!

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We utilize GatherKudos to get reviews.

This is our monthly report.

We have to work on getting a few more positive reviews i would think.

GatherKudos_ Review Performance Report.pdf (233.9 KB)

This goes in the bottom of every email we send, only smiley faces are ask to give a review. all other comments are trapped and sent straight to me.

How did we do?

Good\ 40x40 Not bad\ 40x40 Bad\ 40x40

Click to rate your experience with Lehman Property Management

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Hi @glenn It seems like the process you have is good. I would normally encourage a two-step process where you seek feedback from your customer and only those that give positive feedback are encouraged to give reviews. It looks like you have this covered with the GatherKudos app. If NPS becomes a priority for you, it is a good way to capture the top percentage of these customers as clients that give you a 9 or 10 are promoters of your business and will always give you a great review.

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We have started really trying to get Google reviews, I couldn’t believe how many we got simply by asking! Also if we get a high NPS result we will ask them to put it into a google review…
Also a bit of tick, we say “Its been a huge goal for us to return our bonds within 24 hours, thank you so much for helping us do that by leaving the property in such a good condition. Its also been another goal of ours to increase our google reviews, do you think you could help with that goal tooo” lol!

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