What do you think drives owners and guests to choose a specific vacation rental management company to book their vacation or manage their investment property? For many, the word “reliability” is what holds the most value to a business.
The words ‘reliable vacation rental management companies’ holds 4+ billion search results on Google alone. This speaks volumes about who Guests, Owners, and Employees want to do business with.
Let’s get into the unfortunate side of Google reviews or any other social media site’s reviews in general. As hard working business owners, managers, and employees, we would like to believe that all Google reviews are inspected for accuracy, ensuring they are verified, etc. We want to believe these reviews are coming from someone we have done business with, we have engaged with, and provided our service for. Google claims that they have a “no tolerance” for fake reviews, which is meant to mislead customers derived from a personal vendetta. They also claim to make sure the accuracy of each review is verified before it goes live on their website. How do we know this is truly the case?
Google has stated that it is not tough to tell which reviews are actually genuine and which are excessively affirmative. They look for “spammy” reviews, those written with links attached, or from a former or current employee. They also look for suspicious testimonies that seem over the top whether negative or positive. They also advocate that it is best for businesses to try to respond to the reviewers and acknowledge the negative reviews instead of trying to have them removed.
So, despite what has been said about minimizing fake reviews, it’s just not that simple. The spread of fake reviews is a rapidly growing issue worldwide. These false reviews are galvanized by the effortless and unjust ease in which a person or dishonest competitor can complete this malicious act. Despite the fact that consumers heavily rely and use many review sites (google being the most popular), few policies ensure accuracy and ethics when it comes to anyone writing a review. Disgruntled employees, peeved vendors, shady competitors, and malicious individuals continue to manipulate review sites which can cause unjustifiable destruction to a property management company and their brand reputation.
Check out this article written about Amazon, the largest retailer in the US, about fake reviews and the difficulty they face with spotting them. If this is the case for Amazon, just think of how easy it is for this terrible matter to hurt your business reputation. Every vacation rental management company is subject to this deceitful and hurtful mess.
There are multiple companies that promise they can get your negative or fake reviews removed. We can tell you from first hand knowledge, those victories are very few and far between and will end up costing you thousands of dollars, whether they can get them removed or not. There are also many companies that will pay for fake positive consumer reviews, and even a black market online where people will complete these fake reviews for monetary return.
Let’s face it, vacation rental management companies cannot afford to take any risks when it comes to their reputation. Facts prove that reputation is far too important of a factor when it comes to owners and guests. The longer adverse reviews or disagreeable content stays online, the more destruction it will do to your company. So, how can your vacation rental management company derive a positive rating authentically and with integrity? Vacation Reputation’s Review tool will help grow your positive reviews by reaching more of your guests and owners using automation and database reactivation. Our highly effective way of delivering guest surveys earn responses by serving requests via multiple channels including email and text messages on an automated basis; following up until they leave a review. As a result, guests feel motivated to complete the review because it’s easy and they have options. To learn more about our solution and how to get your company ranked at the top of local search results, book time for a brief conversation.
Let Vacation reputation help you capture the attention of your satisfied customers, so you can showcase just how wonderful you and your management company are!