Improving Online Reviews–Quickly and Credibly

The HBS View: Online reputation improves fastest when management fixes recurring service failures, asks every eligible resident at the right moment, and responds with speed and professionalism. The objective is not to manufacture praise — it is to make genuine resident satisfaction more visible.

Executive Summary: A property’s online rating is a trailing indicator of its operating experience. The quickest legitimate path to improvement is therefore a two-part program: remove the issues generating negative sentiment, then make it frictionless for a broad and representative group of residents to share honest feedback.

The Central Principle: Do not try to “manage the score.” Manage the resident experience and the review-request process. The score follows.