Realty Firms Seek Online Reputation Managers on Social Media

Bangalore: People who are waiting to get possession of their homes in 2013 will be delayed due to limited fund and slow down in project approvals. Nearly 50 percent homes that make up around half of 323,000 homes which were promised to be delivered in 2013 are running behind construction schedule, according to Liases Foras, real estate research firm, reports Ravi Teja Sharma and Vijaya Rathore of Economic Times.

Lately, Tata Housing appointed Social Wavelength to control the social media by which they can keep a track of online comments about the brand. Prominent real estate players who are seeking online reputation management on social media are Puravankara Projects, Unitech, Supertech and Lodha.

"When we see negative conversations, we try build on them and put the right perspective forward, reason it out. If there has been a project delay, we tell them the ground reality about why it happened," said Rajeeb Kumar Dash, head of marketing services at Tata Housing.

“Many of the comments online stem from miscommunication, which needs to be sorted out. What is also important is to set expectations of a customer right," according to Jack Bastian Nazareth, COO of Puravankara Projects, reports ET.

Such online reputation management offers two-sided approach. First is to remove negative comments, views and conversation against the brand and build a platform to make customers feel that their issues are heard. "Consumers in India are very forgiving. They are fine if their voice is heard and responded to. A solution may take time, but being heard takes care of most of the problems," said Hareesh Tibrewala, Joint Chief Executive Officer of Social Wavelength.

"It is also important to identify those who are talking positively about a brand and then to amplify that to create a feel good about the brand," added Tibrewala.

Mumbai based developers, Lodha Group utilizes social networking medium to monitor feedback which helps the group to understand customer’s complaint. This procedure does not stop here, after receiving complaints; the group interacts directly with the customers.

"We have found that a majority of concerns expressed online are due to misinformation or a lack of information and we are able to address these satisfactorily at an individual level through direct engagement," says R Karthik, chief marketing officer, Lodha group.