By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-03-16 08:40:54 | Word Count: 664
For many people, their personal and professional reputation is very important. Businesses feel the same way about their reputation, if not more. The public perception of a business is vital to their growth and stability. The most trusted companies are the ones that offer great service and products that keep their customers happy. A disgruntled customer can be your worst nightmare. A customer that isn’t pleased with your company could go to great lengths to damage your reputation, regardless of the facts and circumstances.
Ex-employees, rival companies and angry customers can use the internet to destroy your reputation. The internet is a ubiquitous part of society that is used for all sorts of reasons, one of which is to share commentary on any and everything. People enjoy sharing their opinion about restaurants, cars, hotels, technology, etc. Sadly, many businesses don’t realize that they can corroborate or combat any comment or review that is about them.
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When there is bad feedback written about you, you should find out about it quickly. Often times, you are so busy running your company that you don’t have the opportunity to see what is being said about you. You have to make time to research yourself. Customers are doing it so you should too. Every time a customer types your company’s name into a search engine and clicks enter, the subsequent results should tell the customer everything they want to know about your company. Look your company up online and see what pops up.
If you happen to find anything that is negative, you should face the comment directly. Beating around the bush will not help you to protect your online reputation. Confront the person who commented about your company in a direct way. It could have been a misunderstanding on the customers’ part. Tackle the claim mentioned in the review and offer an explanation for what happened and why the person should not feel the way they do. Present your version of what transpired in a calm way. Future customers will be able to reason and decide who has a legitimate explanation.
After doing this you can try to have the host or customer remove the comment. If they don’t, at least your response will be next to the bad review. You can always try to rectify the problem too. Offer the customer a discount, giveaway or coupon to calm them down and show that you apologize for whatever inconvenience may or may not have been experienced. The client may be satisfied with that gesture and remove the comment.
The next strategy should take place regardless of whether you find a negative comment. Every company should create a blog and syndicate new web content. Fresh content is what can keep organic search results positioned in your favor. Getting press releases published on different sites is also a way to flood the web with information that you have influence on.
Planning a strategy for protecting your online reputation can be done with a company that offers Reputation Management services like Optimum7. Contact us today. Call us today at 1-800-736-9618.
