Thu, March 28, 2024

Free Access: Five common reputation management mistakes you can avoid

I found this while browsing the web last night. It’s a great start for our topic today.

A manager in the board meeting after poor customer reviews and brand reputation results: “If it gets worse, it may force us to make reliable products and provide better customer service.” (Source: https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-customer-service-jokes/)

That’s how some people feel about reputation management. It is something that can only penalize you. The fact is, reputation management is something to embrace and positive reviews can have a big impact on your business.

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Here are three jaw-dropping stats about the importance of reputation management:

  • 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. (Source: reputationx.com)
  • 79% of online users report trusting online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. (Source: brightlocal)
  • 86% of people will hesitate to purchase from a business with negative online reviews. (Source: Invesco)

Your online reputation can have a direct and real impact on your business. Sometimes without you even knowing it. So here’s our list.

1. Not understanding where you stand today on reputation management. It is easy enough to find out how you are doing. You should definitely do a quick audit of your business to see where you stand today. You can do so at https://grouprb.com/get-your-free-online-audit-report/.

2. Not having a planned reputation management strategy. It is important to monitor what people are saying about your business, product, or service online. Reviews, ratings, comments, and mentions can help you understand how your business is perceived. It can also help you determine where you need to focus on reputation management.

3. Ignoring negative online feedback and comments about your brand. Negative feedback on social media can frustrate any business owner. While it may tempt you to ignore or delete these comments, doing so is a mistake. Responding to these comments is a good way to show great customer service.

4. Not taking the high road. One of the worst things you can do is argue with a customer. Arguing with the customer will not solve the problem and will only reflect negatively on the business. Instead, try to understand the customer’s perspective and see if you can resolve the problem.

5. Giving pre-written “copy-and-paste” responses to all questions. We have all gotten a canned message like this, “We would be happy to review your account. Please contact our customer service at your earliest convenience.” Customers hate this. ’Nuff said.

The best thing to do is to get a strategy together that helps you aggregate reviews from many sources so you can get a clear idea of what people are saying about a business online. Once this is in place, you can start monitoring where your business is mentioned across different news sources, blogs, and social networks to help you identify both positive and negative sentiments about your brand.

And once your full strategy is in place, you will have competitive benchmarking that can help your business understand how you compare to competitors on social media and in local searches.

So what does it all mean?

It’s not workable to monitor the internet continuously, but you definitely can’t afford to miss a review. One unanswered negative review can undo all your progress! Get your business set up with a reputation management program that can notify you about new reviews, so that you can respond to negative reviews and take advantage of positive reviews in a timely manner.

Until next time, remember that you deserve marketing that actually works.

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