The epIQ Index is composed of 4 primary variables, measured over the most recent 365 day period and updated daily – meaning that every day is an opportunity to enhance your community & portfolio epIQ results. Improving any one or ALL of them results in an increased score, leading you to become a Most Improved Community!
The variables to focus on include:
- Renter Ratings: The average ratings from renter reviews and surveys
- Review Count: The # of reviews per unit compared to other communities
- Manager Review Engagement: The % of reviews with community responses.
- Manager Review Reply Time: The average community review response time compared to other communities
Our Top 5 Most Improved communities increased their epIQ ranking by raising one or more of our 4 main epIQ components. So how can you make the Most Improved List, Top 10 List, or even improve your overall epIQ grade?
Start with the basics:
- Make sure you have a process in place to receive and respond to all reviews on apartmentratings.com. Whether a review is positive or negative, it needs attention in a timely fashion.
- Encourage residents to write reviews. Good or bad, we want to hear what they have to say to find out what they love about your community (to share with other potential renters), and what could use improvement (to use as trainable moments for team members, for potential future capital improvements, or for marketing opportunities).
One thing to always keep in mind is that it is highly discouraged in most industries (including multifamily), as well as against FTC and most reviews sites’ policies, to incentivize your customers to write a review. For more info, check out our webinar on this topic.
Identify additional opportunities to assist you in achieving the basics listed above:
- Responding to reviews and questions or comments is essential to building trust and loyalty with both potential and current residents. How can you improve your response engagement and time?
- Use the SatisFacts Review Responder Program. Our team will monitor and respond to all reviews for your community, taking the work off your plate so you can focus on resident issues, requests, and overall satisfaction. We can also offer webinars and training documentation to help your teams if your company prefers to handle review responses onsite.
- Designate a person or multiple people in your company or community to receive and regularly respond to all reviews as part of their daily responsibilities.
- Building a rapport with your prospects and residents will make it easier to ask them to share their experience at your community online. You can then use notable events to request a review, such as after a work order or resident event, or after renewal paperwork is signed. How can you get more reviews?
- Let SatisFacts do the work for you. Utilize the SatisFacts insite surveys along with the Verified Resident Program to engage with residents at a multitude of touchpoints and then encourage them to leave a review regarding their experiences. Our surveys combined with the VRP program have a known track record of helping to increase reviews and boost apartmentratings.com review scores (and potentially on other review sites as well).
- Create business cards with a QR code that links directly to your apartmentratings.com community page for your whole team to utilize – place in new move-in folders or gifts, attach to renewal paperwork, leave in an apartment with a completed work order form; the possibilities are endless.
- Create customized review emails and designate a team member a week to send personalized emails to residents who recently engaged with your community or a specific team member in a positive way. Examples could include residents who sent a thank you note, gift or treat of some kind, or mentioned a positive move-in or maintenance experience, etc.
Take a moment to review your epIQ score card and compare it to our benchmarks to see how your community or company compares to the overall average. Where might you be able to improve? Reach out; we’d be happy to help you meet and exceed your goals so we can see you on the next Most Improved Community list!
