Online Reputation Management

The internet is a valuable and indispensable business tool. It allows companies and individuals to build their brands, provide information, reach customers, and expand their businesses. It also, however, can be a destructive instrument, as negative press spreads more rapidly than ever through forums, blogs, networking sites, consumer sites, and more. Online reputation management is fast becoming a necessary function of any business that depends on the internet for customers, sales, and even things as simple as providing driving directions or store hours for their physical locations.

To illustrate the importance of online reputation management, let's say you own a company that depends on the internet for drive customers your way and for ordering. One of your customers leaves a review in your comment section complaining about poor customer service. You decide to ignore it because it is only one comment among many good ones. From there, the customer gets frustrated and decided to complain about your company on a consumer website. A blogger who is visiting the site picks up on the comment, and because he needs a topic for the next day, devotes his entire post to your company's poor customer relations. In turn, other bloggers link to this site or pick up the information. From there, it can go anywhere online, and at this point, it is impossible to eradicate all the negative press. People reading these comments may decide it is not worth it to buy from your company; after all, people give a lot of credence to customer reviews.

First, what should you have done? After reading the negative comment, you should have responded immediately to the concern. Was it founded? Could a simple apology and a coupon for free shipping next time alleviate the problem? Often, hearing a customer's concern and responding is enough to stop any further negative press. If it did travel a bit further into cyberspace, you could try contacting blogs, posting a response on your website, optimizing your content, and adding new content, and otherwise tackling the problem head-on.

Whether negative comments are deserved or not, it is important that your company respond quickly and actively to protect its reputation. Start by regularly monitoring what is being written about you and practice other effective online reputation management techniques. You can't do business with a bad reputation.

Let us help with online reputation management. Contact us today.