Reviews are becoming a must in order for you to successfully run your business. More sites are focusing on reviews as their number one priority. Whether it's Google ranking sites based on reviews or Tripadvisor with their giant pile of reviews, no one can argue that reviews are here to stay. If your running a business and are thinking "now is the time" to focus on getting reviews, you are right. Start off thinking how can you get customers or clients to review your business? Think about areas of your business you might see where a negative review may surface, polish those areas first before jumping into getting reviews. Once you start, more than likely, the reviews will not be removed if it's a third party website that is posting the review. So tread here lightly, don't just jump in and see how many reviews you can get! It's not worth it.

The other day I was reading a story about a vacation rental owner who was blackmailed by their renter. The owner attempted to withhold some money from their deposit because of some damage that had been done to their property while the renter was staying there. When the deposit was returned, the renter immediately got upset, demanded their money back or they would post a negative review. While this seems like they can not legally do that, vacation rental advertising sites are allowing it to happen.

So, with this in mind, I thought to myself. How can a vacation rental owner still attempt to get a review, even if a renter was not the perfect renter. I came up with this idea; what about asking renters to review your home before they depart or send them a rental review request prior to refunding their deposit. Now, I know you can not demand a review, thats unfair, but you sure can try this approach, and change your policy on refunding deposits 14 days after departure. This way you eliminate the exchange of deposit as a bargaining tool.

Of course, I do not claim to know it all, but I am a vacation rental owner who manages her own home. I have been working on refining my process of collecting reviews. I'm trying not to go overboard with it, but I am always thinking of ways to entice renters to review my place respectfully!

If you have a comment or idea on reviews, please post it here. I'd love to hear others views.