Sometimes, the genius of something is how simple and unique it is. Take Flappy Birds for instance. Although it wasn’t an immediate success, it sat in general ambiguity for 4 months before it exploded, it created an entire genre of game. It’s no longer available in the app stores but its legacy lives on in its many clones. It was first, it did it best, and it changed the game – pun intended. Back in the stone ages of Multifamily, about 3-4 years ago, for reviews, there was ApartmentRatings. Just ApartmentRatings. No clones. Ratings and reviews were the new buzz words. Yelp had very little relevance and Google reviews was a land of crickets. As an industry we had many intense debates about whether you should respond or even pay much attention to reviews at all. The idea finally caught on but not in the way, I think, we envisioned.

Fast forward to today. Every ILS seems to offer their own set of reviews, independent of the Flappy Birds of the industry, ApartmentRatings. Every company who does reviews has a “Verified Resident” program of some sort. Did you know that one ILS won’t allow your rating to go below 3 stars? That’s pretty handy. The only thing these types of reviews seem to benefit is everyone’s SEO. Ouch.

I haven’t read any new funny ApartmentRatings reviews in a while. It’s been flooded with fake and verified reviews which are hard to digest. Most reviews I’ve read on the other sites, especially ILS’s, are pretty awesome in their stars but are incredibly boring to read. So many of them lack details:

“Excellent and caring staff.”

“Location is good.”

There’s a Fault In These Stars and it’s to the tune of 3 or 4 words. Regardless of value, these reviews are being used to drive traffic or increase monthly costs with addons. If I want a review on a product, I’ll go to Amazon, even though they aren’t by definition a review site. I do it because I know I’ll get quality reviews about a product I’m interested in. Real reviews with real thoughts from real people without any company interference.

Our customers want to read real reviews about our apartments. 88% of them last year used an online review to determine the quality of a local business. All it seems we’re giving them is diluted crap with too much Property Management Company influence. We’ve made people afraid to respond truthfully, just ask these residents in Orlando. All of this sticking our biased noses where it doesn’t belong has rendered these reviews useless, not just for our customers but for us as well. We SHOULD have to worry about dipping below 3 stars but I suppose if I have an excellent and caring staff with a great location, we don’t need to fix anything – let’s just go golfing!

I miss the days of responding to every review. Sure, doing so made us seem needy and too PR-y but that at least felt more real because we were responding to real people. Angry, silly, obnoxiously moronic ones but real.

After all these years, I think we’re still afraid to listen to what our customers have to say. We’re embracing reviews on our terms not the consumers. I guess we never did listen to the blogs and conference presenters and people preaching common sense over the years. After all, how else would we have gotten here?

Since I’m standing on a soapbox and hopefully you’re still reading, I figure I’ll voice some displeasure at Internet Brands. This isn’t a customer complaint but instead upset at the direction they’ve chosen to take. I was excited for Satisfacts at their IB acquisition because with the influx of cash it meant realizing their dream of being a true rating system for the industry. All it seems they are allowed to be now is a public vehicle for property management companies to control the message on ApartmentRatings. Disappointing. Please be the Amazon.

Here’s a thought. Do you ask during your prospect process if they read any online reviews about you? Did you ask what these reviews said about you?

That would be a different type of progress.

What do you think? Have reviews in our industry become redundant, annoying, and just plain boring or am I just out to lunch? Is there still something to learn from them or have we crushed what we can learn from them into submission? Are these 3 buzz words dead? “Ratings and Reviews”.

What was your high score on Flappy Birds? Mine? 98. Boo Yah.

Happy renting everyone.