Reputation management dangers
Reputation is a big thing in business. It directly affects how much money you make and ties in with customer service and support within your company. This is why it is crucial to keep your company or products in good standing and looking good to your prospective customers. In the last week, Belkin were found to have paid people to put fake reviews on a variety of sites for their products, and this discovery has harmed their image. Even though it was just one employee who commissioned the reviews, news of it has spread around the tech world and it has even caused their President to produce a response himself. This underhand method is a prime example of how not to do reputation management, so here’s a quick run down of 7 tips on how best to do it properly.
- Use well-travelled e-retailers
Nearly all web stores have a built-in review system for customers to rate products. A good example is Amazon, where users can give a product a 1-5 star rating. If your products are good (which I hope they are!), they could easily pick up some good reviews on sites like this due to the sheer number of people passing through, which also increases the rewards. - Use general user-review sites
Obviously the above tip only works if you are trying to sell products. If you’re a service company or a retailer yourself, then you may well have to resort to general review sites. If your company does not have a profile on a review site, add one. See if you can get a happy customer to give you a review on it – it may end up as a way of getting some free advertising. - Don’t attack the competition
Attacking your competitors is always a bad idea, even if you didn’t start it (more on that in a moment). It just adds fuel to the fire and before you know it, you could be involved in a full-on war of words which will do neither company’s reputation any good whatsoever. Keep your reputation management to your own company! - Don’t respond to attacks
Likewise, you shouldn’t respond if your competitor is putting outright lies about you on review sites or product pages. Chances are, you won’t make the slightest bit of difference, no matter how cleverly worded your rebuttal is. Even worse is to respond to a nasty article they have written about you – again, it is just adding fuel to the fire and could possibly attract even more criticism. If you must, just try and concentrate your customers to review on these sites to counteract the bad publicity. - Engage with social media
Social media is a great thing for reputation management: it’s the equivalent of word-of-mouth over the internet. You should know your market and through this, you can target particular social media sites on which to concentrate your efforts. You don’t need to create a group saying “Company X is the BEST!”, just engage with your customers and they will help you in return. Offering deals to people in this way can often really help your image, fostering a loyal customer base and ensuring repeat custom. - Know when to get involved
Earlier, I mentioned that you shouldn’t respond to attacks. Well, there are exceptions – if the problem can be solved or if it is completely unfounded. For instance, if someone is complaining about long delivery times or poor service in general on a blog or forum, why not contact them in the publically viewable comments asking what you can do to solve the issue? This has been done in the past by various companies, and once the issue is resolved the customer will often write a follow-up post detailing how great your customer service is and how you helped them out. This not only shows you care, it also shows you are pro-active. - Finally, be a good company!
If you find your company is getting a lot of negative reputation, then maybe the problem lies within your own company. Look at the issues being raised and solve them. The better you are, the less you have to manage your reputation – your happy customers will do it for you. Remember, every company has the odd unhappy customer but it is your job to minimise this in order to succeed.
What are your thoughts on these points? Have you had an experience of good or bad reputation management? Any further tips?
Geoff Adams
Programmer, Research and Development
