For as long as I’ve been in property management, online reviews have been a major point of discussion. From debating over whether paying for Yelp advertising is worth it on the assumption that it would get fewer positive reviews filtered, to debates over whether you should try to get negative reviews removed from Google, the discussion never ends. It’s understandable why this is. Recent studies have shown that as many as 99% of consumers refer to online reviews before making a purchasing decision, and 67% will be deterred by seeing any negative reviews. To make matters worse, Google literally factors in reviews when determining your position in both the organic search results and the “pins” on the map. In short, Google reviews are massively important for your business, and in some markets, Yelp may be also (particularly on the west coast or if your target consumer uses Bing more than Google). So when I saw some recent commentary on LinkedIn where some business owners were opposed to trying to get negative reviews taken down, I was surprised, and I figured it was time for an article to discuss this topic.
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Don’t Judge Your Business by Reviews
I was watching a recent ProfitCoach webinar, and while some people were talking about the importance of reviews, Daniel was quick to point out that while reviews might be important, they shouldn’t be used as a metric by which to rate your company’s performance. I think it’s important to start off with this, because Daniel is absolutely right. There are two reasons for this:
If you’re being proactive and going out of your way to request positive reviews from happy clients and residents (as you should be), then your Google rating is not remotely a statistically valid sample of your clientele. You’re going to end up getting an outsized number of positive reviews, simply because you’re making an effort to get those reviews, and for good reason. So that 4.8 star rating doesn’t necessarily mean that your average owner or resident would rate you as a 4.8. It just means that you were very effective at getting happy clients and customers to leave you good reviews.
If you’re NOT being proactive about requesting positive reviews, then you’re almost certainly getting only negative reviews. At the airlines, we had a saying for this: “nobody ever calls the airline to thank them for arriving on time or getting their bag there with them.” In other words, left to their own devices, people are not going to go out of their way to give positive feedback or neutral feedback. BUT, if you piss someone off, you can damned sure be guaranteed that they’re going to go out of their way to let you know just how unhappy they are. So without making an effort to intentionally collect positive reviews, you’re pretty much only going to get negative reviews. But is that 1.5 star rating an accurate measurement of your customer service? Of course not. It just means that a handful of people were angry, and they’re the only ones who left reviews. So you still can’t use this as a measure of your company’s customer service.
In reality, there is no way to get a scientifically valid sample of your clients and residents using Google reviews, because regardless of how you’re requesting or not requesting reviews, you’re still ending up with self-selection bias. It isn’t a random sample of your customer base, it’s a very targeted sample, one way or the other. And it is basically impossible to make it a random sample because even if you systematically request Google reviews from everyone, people are still choosing whether to leave those reviews or not, and you have no way of correcting for the sample to make sure that it’s representative of your overall clientele.
Instead, you need to use better operational metrics to determine how your business is performing for your clients and customers. Things like churn rate, lease renewal rate, response time, etc. are all far better ways to judge the performance of your business. Google reviews are a game to be played in the marketing of your business. That’s it. It’s not a KPI that tells you how your business is actually doing, it’s a KPI that shows how effective you are at marketing your business.
The Game Must be Played
Now, this is where the discussion on LinkedIn came in. Some people apparently have a belief that trying to get as many positive reviews as possible and trying to take down negative reviews is dishonest and unethical because it doesn’t accurately reflect the sentiment of your business. While I understand what they’re saying, this entire argument is based on a false premise. Google reviews never were and never will be an accurate reflection of the sentiment of your business, for the reasons I laid out in the first section above. You are clinging to this ethical concern where the entire online review concept is unethical in nature. Google doesn’t give a damn if your reviews are accurate. Look at the garbage they allow to be posted. There isn’t even a confirmation that the people leaving reviews on you have ever even done business with you. We’ve had negative reviews left by people who were meaning to review entirely other businesses! I once even had one of them storm into our office screaming about how we stole his security deposit when he moved out. After a few minutes of going back and forth, he realized that we weren’t even his property management company. This guy can leave a negative Google review about us based entirely upon a mistake. And you think the ethical thing to do is to let him mislead people and leave that negative review up if he doesn’t voluntarily take it down? I’m sorry, but that’s flat out insane. I’m all about business ethics and honesty, so I respect the desire to not manipulate the ratings, but the ratings aren’t fair in the first place. This is just a game that you must play.
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The best way to think of online reviews is that they’re just another component of your marketing strategy. You’re so hung up on your ethics of not having negative reviews taken down, but when you put out actual advertisements for your business, do you go out of your way to tell people what former angry tenants had to say about you? Of course not. You have no obligation to allow yourself to be painted in a negative light. To the contrary, I would argue that you have an ethical obligation to your employees, your clients, your vendors, and yourself to make your business as successful as possible. When you thrive, they thrive. When you allow unfair negative reviews to remain on Google because of your ethical concerns, you are literally harming every stakeholder in your business. Your owner clients will see longer days on market and lower quality residents, your vendors will get less business, your employees will have worse job security, and you will make lower profits. All because you refused to do whatever you could to get that unfair negative review taken down. This isn’t good ethics, it’s a martyr complex. Step down down off the cross and do what’s best for your business.
While writing this article, I came across this post on social media from a restaurant demonstrating just how crazy and unreasonable online review culture can be:
Legalized Extortion
Let’s be honest, some of these negative reviews are simply legalized extortion. Unlike the Better Business Bureau, which reviews each complaint and mediates a solution, Google and Yelp are just allowing literally anyone to go online and trash your business, and in a great many of the negative reviews, the reviewer is simply using their negative review as a way to extort some sort of concession from you.
Let’s look at a tenant who moves out and leaves the property damaged. They get charged $5k for the legit damage they did to the house, which is more than their security deposit, so they get no refund and get sent off to collections for the remainder. You have literally done your job. You have carried out your fiduciary obligation to your owner client. If you had done anything else, you would have violated that fiduciary obligation, which would literally be illegal, not to mention wildly unethical.
But, the tenant gets mad, so what do they do? They go on Google and Yelp and give you a 1-star review, almost certainly starting off their review by saying “if I culd give them 0 stars I wood!!!1!1!11!1!1!!” Why are they leaving the negative review when they know damned well that they were in the wrong? Simple: they’re trying to extort you. They know that businesses are concerned with their online reputation, so they think they can go online, trash you, and you’ll cave. And you know what? It works a lot of the time. I have seen property managers on Facebook groups straight up admit that they don’t charge things to tenants on move-out because they’re worried about negative reviews. This is obscene. Their own client is getting screwed over, all because they don’t want a negative review. But, it’s not surprising, because extortion works! But let’s not kid ourselves, that’s all that this is. Legalized extortion.
You have no obligation to put up with this. Putting up with it is not the ethical thing to do. Stop it!
Step 1: Negotiate
You first step in these situations is to give in to the extortion (but only slightly). Recognize that as distasteful as it is, allowing these people to unfairly smear you and harm all stakeholders in your business isn’t an option, and negotiate with the negative reviewer to get it taken down. This is surprisingly effective.
We teach an entire course on this in our PMAssist Insider subscription. But the short version is that you reach out to the reviewer and ask them what it would take to get the review taken down. You would be amazed how little it can take. Sometimes they’ll come back and tell you that if you just settle for giving them $100, they’ll be happy and take down the review. Folks, that’s well worth it. I know it sticks in your craw. I know it feels downright painful to give one of these extortionists even a penny. But remember, this isn’t about your ego. It’s not even about the principle of the matter. It’s about doing what’s best for all of the stakeholders in your business. Including yourself.
I always start off with this. I’d say in about half of cases, we’re able to negotiate a settlement that gets the review taken down for a relatively small amount of money. So we’ll go back and forth with them trying to negotiate a settlement for a couple of weeks, and only if that doesn’t prove fruitful do we move on to other means. If we reach a settlement, we always get it in writing in a legally binding settlement agreement that includes a non-disparagement clause and a confidentiality clause so that they can’t just go right back and post again after receiving the settlement money. The settlement should specifically state that they remove the review first, then you pay out the settlement amount. Not before.
Step 2: Legal Threats
We’re businesspeople, so we’re used to dealing with lawyers. Not only do we have our own lawyers that we deal with on a regular basis for handling evictions, contract changes, etc., but it’s a rare property manager who hasn’t been sued at least once. There’s a reason that many brokerages don’t allow their agents to do PM. It’s a litigious space. So when a demand letter shows up or even when we get served an actual suit, most of us just sort of shrug, send it off to our attorneys, maybe file an insurance claim, and go about our business.
But remember, we’re weird. The average person is NOT used to lawyers. When the average person gets a certified letter in the mail from an attorney’s office with a lot of scary legalese, many of them panic. We can use this to our advantage, and this is the second phase of my process for dealing with unfair negative reviews.
Most attorneys will send a demand letter for a relatively small amount of money. Think one billable hour or less, so somewhere around $150-$350 for most PMs. So get your favorite landlord/tenant attorney to send out a letter demanding that the reviewer take down their review or you’ll hit them with a libel and defamation suit. The great thing about defamation is that there is no fixed penalty for it. It’s all about a smart attorney’s “theory of damages.” That theory of damages is all about the potential loss of business as a result of the libelous review. Since a single new client can earn you tens of thousands of dollars, and since there is massive amounts of publicly available data showing that reviews are a big deal for people making purchasing decisions, it’s very easy for your attorney to put forth a credible theory of damages in the tens of thousands of dollars or more. The last time my attorney filed a libel case for us, she sued them for $50k plus her attorney’s fees. Most tenants aren’t going to risk losing $50k+ in a lawsuit over a security deposit when they know damned well that they caused the damage they are being charged for. In many cases, just getting the letter threatening it is enough to get the review taken down. Getting served with a lawsuit even moreso. But at this step, all we want is the demand letter. Litigation comes later (maybe).
Step 3: Review Removal Service
This is the step that everyone was debating on LinkedIn. Some people were saying that it was unethical to get reviews removed, and some (like me) were defending the practice.
Many people aren’t even aware of this option, but there are services out there who work with Google and within their review policy to get reviews taken down. Frequently these companies were started by former Google employees or people who have solid business connections at Google, so they know what the Google terms of service are and what breaks those rules and can be used to get a review straight up removed. Many of us have “flagged” or reported negative reviews, but nothing happens. I’m not sure where those reports go (I’m guessing into a black hole), but they are not effective. These review removal services, though, are usually able to get these reviews taken down, and usually quite quickly. They seem to know the right people or the right systems to go through at Google to get something done.
I’m sure some of you are asking (as I did) whether this is all kosher under Google’s policies, or whether these companies are doing something sinister to get reviews taken down. But the truth is simply that they’re using Google’s policies to your benefit. They’re finding things in these negative reviews that aren’t allowed by the policy, they’re pointing it out to their contacts at Google, and the reviews come down.
Now, this isn’t a universal option. Some reviews are not a violation of any Google policy, and those can’t get taken down. But the truth is, a LOT of these negative reviews are not allowed. Google simply doesn’t have the manpower (or desire, it seems) to police them on a massive scale, so it all relies upon these companies pointing out the problem reviews to the right people. So, for example, a review that just says something like “I’ve been a tenant of XYZ Property Management for 5 years and I was not satisfied with their customer service” is likely to not get removed, even by one of these removal services, because it’s not violating any policies. It’s simply a legitimate customer’s opinion, no different than someone leaving a Yelp review on a pizza place when they didn’t like the flavor of the sauce. But let’s say the review was more like “I HATE THESE PEOPLE. THEY STOLE MONEY FROM ME. BOB IS A JERK. STAY AWAY!” Google ain’t gonna tolerate that if they’re approached by one of these review removal companies. First of all, it alleges some pretty serious criminal behavior (stealing money) without providing any evidence of it, and they don’t want to get served with a lawsuit for hosting libelous reviews on their platform. But it also specifically attacks an individual employee by name, which is a big no-no.
The truth is, the vast majority of negative reviews are filled with this crap. It’s very rare for someone to just leave a calm missive of their personal opinion of a business’s service. Instead, it’s always filled with attacks on specific employees, alleging fraud or other illegal activity without evidence, or worst yet, the people who have never even done business with you and are just leaving negative reviews because their angry friend asked them to. So while you won’t be able to get EVERY negative review taken down this way, you will be able to get a lot of them taken down, probably a solid majority. And honestly, you really shouldn’t want to get all of them taken down, because some of them are probably justified (every company makes big mistakes occasionally), and it also lends some credibility to your company if you have a few negative reviews. Having nothing but 5-star reviews can actually look a little “suspicious” in some people’s minds.
Step 4: Litigation
So you’ve tried negotiating, you’ve tried having a lawyer send a scary letter, and you’ve even tried a review removal service, but none of it has worked and it’s been months of that nasty and unfair review sitting there and smearing your reputation, and you’re ready to go scorched earth. What do you do?
This becomes a risk vs reward decision. You need to evaluate just how bad that negative review really is. Some factors I would consider:
Is the review sitting near the top of your list of reviews (remember to sort by “most relevant,” as that’s what Google defaults to)?
Is the review especially damaging to your reputation? I.e., does it falsely allege things that make you appear almost criminal? Perfect examples would be claims of stolen money, mishandled money, fraudulent practices, etc.
Does it contain claims that are not true? Remember something is only libelous or slanderous if it’s not true. The burden of proof would be on them to prove that you did what they claim, but still, if you actually did it, the law will be on their side. So it’s not libelous for them to post that you waited two weeks to fix their air conditioner if it really did take you two weeks. But if they claim it took two weeks and you actually did it in 3 days, then that’s libel.
Is this person likely to have the financial means and the emotional wherewithal to hire a top-notch attorney and drag you through a jury trial and multiple appeals?
Do they have any sort of counterclaim that they can file against you? (E.g., did they move out because your landlord client wouldn’t remediate mold?)
Personally, a review has to be pretty damned bad for me to actually pull the trigger on litigation, and I have to feel pretty confident that they don’t have the resources to engage in protracted litigation. Bad reviews legitimately can cost you tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, because the average lifetime value of a PM client is so high if you’ve properly maximized your revenue. However, protracted litigation can also end up costing tens of thousands of dollars, and you also have to factor in the opportunity cost of the distraction.
That said, if someone posts a negative review claiming that I’ve literally stolen money from them, and that review is sitting at the top of the “most relevant” list where people are going to see it, I’m going to do everything I can to get that review taken down, including litigation. It’s a rare decision, but sometimes it has to be made. Reputation is everything.
Some Reviews Just Need to Be Learned From
Now, all of that said about removing negative reviews, we also need to recognize that the people opposed to getting reviews taken down are not completely crazy. There are legitimately cases where you’ve massively screwed up somehow and some tenant or owner is simply holding you accountable for it. They aren’t trying to extort money from you, they aren’t lying, they’re just trying to let people know their experience with poor service. In these cases, you shouldn’t go past Step 1. It always makes sense to negotiate. Even if you really did legitimately screw up in a massive way, that doesn’t mean that you can’t try to make it right, and if you do make it right, it’s only fair that part of the settlement be that the negative review comes down, because you’ve solved the problem and eliminated their concern.
However, if you can’t come to an agreement, or if they’re just so angry about the screw-up you made that they don’t even want to talk to you, then it’s time to just eat that bad review and try to cover it up with as many new good reviews as you possibly can. Do NOT get into the business of sending threatening letters and suing people for negative reviews that are perfectly fair. If you screwed up, own it. Learn your lesson. Don’t let it happen again. I know it hurts to see that 1-star review there, but sometimes you just have to accept it. Not most of the time. But sometimes.
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