I’ve recently been inspired by a blog post over at Creativity Unbound, written by Edward Boches.  You’re probably going to see his name come up in a lot of my articles.  He’s chief creative officer at Mullen, a huge agency out of Boston, and his ideas are often light-years (but in this case just minutes) ahead of what and how I’m thinking.  In his post titled, “Dear Marriot: Some Free Advice After a Bad Night” he talks about a rough night he had at a recent hotel stay and builds an army around the idea of the now vocal and much more powerful consumer.  With a group of around 13,000 followers on Twitter, it’s no surprise that his message didn’t fall on deaf ears.  Within hours, the general manager of the Marriot was commenting on his blog apologizing for the inconvenience.

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This isn’t a new theory.  I’ve written about how social media gives the consumer a voice, about how brands need to monitor conversations surrounding their product or service to manage crisis in the time need, and how companies no longer have control of their brands, consumers do.   The funny thing is we keep telling ourselves that we know and understand this, but companies continue to let interns and inexperienced marketers manage this information for them.  Or worse yet, they don’t monitor it at all.

The most important thing a business can do in today’s digital world is the following:

Encourage individuals to tweet, blog, post images, and videos of anything that fails to meet your standards as consumers. 

I’d even take this a step further and add:

We also encourage you to tweet, blog, post images, and video of anything that meets or exceeds your expectations.  We always appreciate positive feedback!

What does this do?  It shows consumers that you recognize their power and do everything within reason to make sure that they have a pleasant experience.

It got me thinking about a recent issue I’ve had in my own personal life, not too far removed from the hotel story mentioned above.  The past few weeks I’ve been casually browsing apartments thinking about making the move to get out on my own.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is that everywhere you turn you read a different review, see a different picture, a different price, and a different problem with a property.  Where’s the truth in advertising, where’s the corporation stepping in to diffuse any flames and put out any fires, and where is the encouragement from the company to empower the consumer to activate his/her voice.  It’s still relatively non-existent in real estate.

I was sold on finding a loft in midtown St. Louis and a property management company called Front Door stood out to me.  They had some nice available units at a relatively attractive price.  Guess what.  They were blacklisted online by consumers.  Facebook groups, blogs, message boards, all focused on negative aspects of the business and their properties.  Why isn’t someone stepping up to the plate to put out those fires?  I would never lease from their company after what I’ve read. 

Let’s look at an example.  Let’s say a renter gets on ApartmentFinder.com and writes a terrible review saying that the unit is overpriced that the management is sketchy, and that parking is a mess.  What I would then like to see is the manager of the property responding to the allegations with a reasonable response.  For instance:

“We apologize that you had a negative experience with our property.   We feel that the price is very comparable to other units in the area and we are working with the parking garage next door to create more spaces for our residents.  As for your complaints about John, our current manager, he just started a blog about our complex and the surrounding area and he would be more than happy to discuss your complaints about management.  If you’re still unhappy, we’d be more than willing to discuss the termination of your lease and other leasing opportunities you may be interested in in the area.” 

How hard is that!?

There’s also the flip side.  What if your complex only has two reviews and neither of them provides much context?  Then it would be a great idea to encourage your tenants to write reviews, blogs, tweets, etc. that promote their experience.  Hell, even offer an incentive with money off rent for those that post to a particular website; good or bad.  In a time where consumers are more influential and more credible than the company itself, it’s more important than ever to tap into them and utilize their insights and experiences.

I wish I could apologize and say I understand why companies don’t have the time or resources to manage and monitor online opinions but I really have no sympathy because it’s quite possibly one of the easiest and most important pieces of business a company can focus their attention on.  Who’s doing it right?  A lot of companies.  Who’s doing it wrong?  An inconceivable amount more.  The future of customer service is social and more businesses need to ready themselves to talk.

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