There will always be businesses who don’t care about their online reputation. Businesses that don’t manage their social channels effectively. Businesses that don’t prioritise responding to an unhappy customer review and businesses that don’t keep an eye on the ball.
The company that works hard to maintain an excellent online business reputation also deeply cares about lousy customer service or a terrible review and here’s why it’s so important:
Having a good company online reputation is going to make a difference to long term success or failure.
What’s the first thing you do as a consumer searching for a new product?
You probably Google it then search for reviews. According to one study*, more than half of consumers won’t use a business if it has less than a four-star rating and 70% of consumers need to read at least four reviews before they can trust a business.
What if those reviews about your business are poor? What if the web search throws up a forum chat about your brand and how bad your service/products/company are?
Would you buy from you? No, we doubt it too.
This is why your online reputation management needs to be outstanding. Fortunately, as a business, there are some positive actions you can take to ensure your company reputation online takes a proactive and reactive approach.
Social Listening Tools
Social listening tools are platforms that actively search for your brand name and trigger alerts and sentiments surrounding them. All our clients are attached to our agency listening tools. We can see any brand conversations on social media, in public forums or on websites and alert the client to any that need a response or their attention. Managing your online reputation means you need to know what people are saying about your company, good and bad.
Speed Is Of The Essence
If a customer contacts you privately with a grievance, you need to respond and pick up immediately. Ignoring them and hoping that they will ‘go away’ will generally mean they will take to the public platform to air their negative experiences with your brand and will be even more challenging to manage. You want to stamp out any small flickering flames before they become an almighty wildfire that has the potential to destroy all the hard work and good online reputation you had previously.
Get The Message
So often, brands will use their social media platforms to post their content, but not interact with their followers. This lack of understanding of the point of ‘social’ media also applies to comments or questions left on social media channels, left for all the world to see. The perception by the visitor is that the company doesn’t care or even worry about what anyone thinks. The reality may well be that the business has grown. Now, it is so busy focusing on other aspects of the business that this area has become an occasional afterthought, rather than being seen as the valuable marketing and customer service and communication tool it is.
The worse offenders are those brands that have messaging channels open, yet don’t respond to messages. We check our client’s social media platforms (including messages) at regular intervals during the day, evenings and weekends. If you can’t manage your social channels either pay a professional social media agency or reduce the number of social channels your business has associated. Your brand online reputation relates to your social channels too.
Appoint A Professional
As the experts in PR & marketing, we manage our clients’ reputation and ensure that every aspect of our client’s online brand name management. We advise, and problem solve and advise our clients on the best approach to each situation. Taking pride in your business can mean that a negative comment or a less than glowing product review can leave a business owner devastated. Hence, it’s essential to have a team that can steer your brand and approach in the right direction, from response to resolve.
*Source Brightlocal
