Recently I have received some Google Alerts for a couple of our communities. If you don't have these set up for your company or your communities I highly recommend you do as it's a free service offered by Google. So let me share with you the two most recent alerts that touch each end of the spectrum.
First is Bayshore Apartments. I received an alert linking me to MerchantCircle.com. I'll have to say that I'd never heard of MerchantCircle.com, but it appears to be a long tail website for city/business searches. The alert came due to a review from a former resident that was dissatisfied with us. How great! If I didn't have Google Alerts I may have never know about the review, and I would not have had the opportunity to respond. Unfortunately, both reviews have now been removed (in less than a day) as they must not have represented what MerchantCircle.com was looking for in a review. While the resident's review was obviously very negative, I'm happy I had the opportunity to respond in an apologetic way and explain J.C. Hart Company was following the terms of our lease agreement in this situation. Nothing too detailed, but a nice apology for any confusion for the resident and for readers of the reviews. I do find it interesting that MerchantCircle.com chose to remove the reviews. The only conclusion I can make from this is that they were not specific to the apartments and focused on one incident vs. being an entire review.
Now onto the other end of the spectrum. I received an alert for our Linden Square community. This was a link to City-Data.com, and a conversation thread about Linden Square. I also had not heard of City-Data.com, but it appears to be a long tail relocation forum. It was great to see positive testimonials for our community as well as for J.C. Hart. I did take the time to write a short response to those involved and thank them for their posts. This is a great way to acknowledge to our residents and future residents that we care and we are listening.
I highly recommend you find out what people online are saying about you. It's a great way to discover some websites or forums you were not aware of. Also, good or bad it's always nice to know what your customers are thinking as it may confirm you are doing things right, or it may help you to make improvements to your processes.
Enjoy your day!
Mj
