The Clients

Repli, founded in Atlanta, Georgia, is a property technology company providing digital marketing technology and solutions for multifamily properties and organizations across the globe. The company offers a suite of services, including website development, search engine optimization (SEO), and digital advertising, as well as reselling some Reputation platform services.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Coastal Ridge Real Estate is focused on real estate investment and development as well as property management in the multifamily housing sector. The business has more than $4 billion in assets under its purview, and it manages properties in more than 50 markets across the United States.

Leveraging the Right Platform

Repli launched its relationship with Reputation in July 2019, first partnering with the platform to resell two of Reputation’s core products, Business Listings and Reviews, before adding others like Social Suite. The company had previously worked with one of Reputation’s competitors, but found the whole experience lackluster and underwhelming.

“What we were looking for was a replacement and a better partner fit than what we had,” says Michael Estep, Chief Operating Officer at Repli. “We were in a position where we weren’t getting a lot of support and there was no real ability to develop a relationship with anybody on their partner or reseller teams. Thankfully, we found Reputation.”

Reputation’s Business Listings product enabled Repli to quickly help a few clients that were struggling with accurately and proactively managing their business listings across the Internet. Both Repli and a growing number of its clients found value in using the tool, leading Repli to begin reselling Reputation’s Business Listings product directly as an included service with its SEO service packages within one year of using the tool.

“Gone were the days where we may have needed to sell a client on using Business Listings through Reputation,” says Estep. “It became part of what our out of the box SEO packages, and a very advantageous and unique selling tool for us. We would mention Reputation in conversations with a lot of clients, and for us, it was a big, big advantage to have it included in our SEO packages.”

Finding a True Partner

Part of what attracted Repli partner Coastal Ridge Real Estate and other subsequent partners to Repli was the robust suite of services the company was able to offer, which were further buttressed by Reputation platform offerings. Initially, Coastal Ridge came to Repli for its advertising and SEO packages, which happened to include Reputation’s Business Listings product, as well as the company’s expertise and willingness to partner tightly.

“Very quickly we developed a strong, tight relationship with [Coastal Ridge],” says Estep. “We understood what they were looking for from a goals and objectives standpoint: to work with a really strong partner, lean into that relationship, and grow and create success together. And we’ve been able to support and help them expand their presence with Reputation products from very early on in that relationship.”

Along with utilizing Repli’s services and some Reputation products, Coastal Ridge sought a recommendation from Repli. The company had purchased a handful of products from a Reputation competitor, but Coastal Ridge wanted to know: was Repli enjoying its partnership with Reputation? Would it recommend Reputation to other businesses?

“They started asking us all the right questions,” says Estep. “Reputation is a great partner. They’ve got a great product set. You put everything on one platform, and the Repli team knows how to use all of those tools very effectively and efficiently.”

Working Together Toward Client Goals

With that endorsement, Coastal Ridge had an even bigger fish for Repli to fry: migrating Coastal Ridge off of a competitor’s platform and embracing Reputation’s range of products and tools. As a business that tailors itself to each individual customer’s needs, Repli has been able to provide the close partnership that Coastal Ridge sought — and pointed to a similar relationship it has with Reputation, which helped put Coastal Ridge at ease.

“From an onboarding and implementation standpoint, for a large-scale portfolio like Coastal Ridge, things like relationships and communication are key,” says Estep. “It seems simple, but being able to get a hold of somebody in a channel other than just an email is valuable and super important.”

To help Coastal Ridge convert off of this competitor’s platform, Repli reached out to and worked with the Reputation team to develop and implement a plan to fully migrate Coastal Ridge and get them started with the Reputation platform before the end of 2022.

As part of its deepening relationship with Coastal Ridge, Repli also worked closely with the company to create a system in which all of the data that Repli provides to Coastal Ridge — including from both its in-house solutions and Reputation’s products — to give the company a fuller picture of its business and where it stands as well as strengthen communication between the two businesses.

What’s Next?

With this desire to provide clients with more data, analysis, and insight top of mind for Repli, the company has since set out to create an application programming interface, or API, that would allow Repli to leverage the Reputation platform even more substantially.

The company is in the process of developing and releasing a custom-made data integration tool that will enable it to pull all of its pertinent Reputation data into its own platform, utilize its own in-house suite of data metrics and reporting, and layer the two data streams to provide more value to its customers. And Repli only sees its partnership with Reputation getting better and better in the future.

“One of the things I love about our partnership is that this API is something we’ve been planning for a long time ourselves, and without even communicating it to the Reputation team, there were already things layered up and teed up in place to deliver on a more tightly integrated platform between the two of us,” says Estep. “So I think from a mindset standpoint, we can do better together in 2023.”