Reputation Management: Preventative Medicine for Your Business

Many businesses don’t think of their online reputation until a problem arises. The key to solving a reputation management issue is by thinking about your online reputation before a problem arises. When it comes to reputation management issues, thankfully not all businesses will have a major media crisis to deal with. However, being prepared with a solid reputation management plan also means that a few negative online consumer reviews won’t end up hurting your brand. Here is a step by step plan to follow when setting up your own profiles and take charge of the online reputation for your business:

1. Set up and fill out all of your own profiles. Setting up online profiles for your company is an easy task. You already know all of the information needed, it just takes an hour or two per channel to set up. The more information you put into it, the better the result. Your online profiles include:
   • Social Channels: Google Plus Company Page, LinkedIn Company Page, Facebook Company Page, Twitter Company Page, Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest.
   • Business Page Listings: Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, and any other relevant business listing pages that you can find online that relate to your area or your industry.
   • Review Sites: Yelp, Consumer Reviews, Consumer Reports, etc. Fill out the listing information on each of these pages. When you claim your business listing on these sites it shows customers who might have a complaint that you are listening.

Every social channel, business page, and review site might not be necessary for your business, but the more you set up, the more credibility your company can obtain and the more search engine results pages you can take up with your own information rather than something someone else writes about your business. Filling out online profiles also will help your search rankings and bring in more business and get your brand more exposure.

2. Practice excellent customer service. Make delivering an excellent customer experience a priority for every person in your company. When excellent customer service is one of your company’s core values, the majority of consumer information and reviews left about your business online are going to be positive. Remember that 100% positive reviews are actually a hindrance because it makes your company seem unbelievable to the general public. Every consumer understands the idea behind not being able to please all the people all the time. Most consumers are fine with seeing a negative review every now and again; and most importantly, that you responded to the negative review and show that you care about customers.
3. Encourage your customers to leave a review about their experience on your social channels and other review sites. The best types of online reviews are the ones that are integrated within your own website. However, even if you have online reviews enabled on your website, customers can leave reviews in other places as well. Guide them to your own reviews with a link in your thank you email, a stamp on a receipt, or by giving them an incentive to fill out feedback.
4. Monitor and respond to customer comments. There are social monitoring tools available that you can utilise that will quickly and easily automatically monitor what is being said about your online. Some are free tools such as Google Alerts, and others are paid, more robust systems. As we explained above, most consumers are fine with, and even expect, a certain percentage of negative reviews. The key is to show that you care, address, and resolve problems for customers. This can actually win over more customers than having all positive online reviews, which can seem untrustworthy.
5. Take feedback seriously and implement changes to address any problems and make improvements. Negative feedback is not all bad for another reason. Sometimes negative reviews can alert you to a problem with a faulty product, price discrepancy, or employee not following company policy. The important thing is to take the feedback seriously if there is a theme developing of a problem being mentioned multiple times, listen to your customers and make the changes necessary to keep them happy.

Setting up these 5 steps will help protect your brand in the event of a crisis or customer problem. If you wait until a problem presents itself, it is too late and the damage is done. If you already have a positive reputation when a problem occurs, it is mitigated by the previous positive reputation and the speed and swiftness at which the problem is handled.