It is that time of year when we all start thinking about our goals.  What did I achieve this year?  What do I want to focus on next year?  Have you thought about any goals specific to ratings and reviews?  There are a lot to choose from, but I have one for you… 

Strive to better understand your residents and for your residents to better understand you.  You and your residents should be having the same conversation.  Too often those conversations are very different.  What I mean by this is that what you say in your marketing and sales pitches doesn’t match the resident testimonials and stories.

To better understand your residents, you have to understand their motivation for leaving you a review or sharing feedback with peers.  And hopefully it is not because you paid them!  People leave you feedback for a very specific reason.  You have to understand the kind of feedback to know how to fix the problem. 

For example, not all negative reviews come from unhappy customers.  Their overall experience could be wonderful outside of that one problem.  You can’t understand a conversation you are not part of, so determining your next steps is difficult (and not always effective) if you are not engaging consistently with your residents to understand their motivation and needs.

Every interaction, both online and off-line, is an opportunity to collect information.  It exposes flaws and misconceptions that can be fixed, but it also exposes all the wonderful things you are doing.  Use this information from your residents and prospects to improve your customer experience, business processes, and marketing.  If you truly listen, understand the motivation, and implement changes, you and your residents will soon have the same conversation.  This establishes you and your marketing efforts as being authentic and credible.