What’s changing:
The requirement of a 70% or greater Recommend Score will be replaced with a minimum epIQ Index Grade of A- (or 80.00). Additionally, we continue to find that renters are most concerned with recent reviews & ratings, which has led us to also remove the additional requirement of a minimum of 10+ total reviews. (See image)
Why is the criteria changing?
With the integration of the epIQ Index onto all community & company pages on ApartmentRatings, as well as in reports in the EXCHANGE platform now complete, we are moving toward discontinuing use of the Recommend Score. As such, we are replacing the Recommend Score with epIQ as part of the Top Rated Communities Awards criteria. The epIQ Index provides a much greater ability for renters and management companies to dig into the details of a community’s and company’s performance. Managers are able to use epIQ to identify specific areas of opportunity for improvement, whereas the Recommend Score lacked the level of transparency, context, or detail necessary to make it truly actionable.
What’s the Impact of the change?
We have analyzed the projected number of winners for 2020 based on the new criteria and compared to the average of previous years (using the old criteria) and anticipate very little change in the number of winning communities. The biggest benefit of the changes is that they allow communities to make improvements to their performance, and therefore their awards eligibility, more quickly & easily than with the old criteria. Since the epIQ Index only takes into account reviews within the past year, you are no longer faced with combating multiple years’ worth of historical ratings. This means your award eligibility is based only on your performance in the year for which you would receive the award…something that was not true with the Recommend Score, which measured you from the time the community was first created on ApartmentRatings.
Helpful Resources
Are some of your communities struggling to meet the new criteria? Lia and Jennifer on our Education Team would be happy to help. Their extensive industry experience and knowledge of the awards and the epIQ Index allow them to provide the best practices & actionable strategies to help you get your communities to where they need to be in time for awards season! You can reach out to them at [email protected].