Advanced Tactics in Reputation Management

Every business entity requires skillful application of advanced tactics in reputation management so that it can achieve its targeted sales and production goals.


Reputation is a crucial supporting pillar to every business. Great reviews and comments help build your business and your products. Conversely, bad ones can be very destructive and cost you more money than you could imagine. In this high-stakes environment, there are tricks of the trade that you can help you form and cement your credibility and brand standing.

Whether you are just starting your online business and wondering how things on the internet work, or you have already spend a lot of time on the web, you may have ideas about how important your online reputation is.

Your reputation reflects your capability as a service provider and how effective and useful whatever your product or service is. It is the foundation of your business: it will directly affect your sales, your profit, and ultimately your bank account. Developing a great reputation is essential for anyone who wants to engage in the online selling world and in this piece, we shall look at some advanced tactics in reputation management.

Ensure Quality Service and Products

To get good reviews, feedback, and comments, you must be able to provide customers with good products. Regardless of whether you are the manufacturer or the distributor, you should answer the following questions before selling products to your beloved customers:

  • Is it fully functional and capable of attaining appropriate performance goals?
  • Is it safe to use? Are there any risk factors for the user?
  • Are sufficient specifications included in the package?
  • Does it contain a comprehensive user’s manual?

Manufacturers
More detailed discussions on how to ensure delivery of quality goods are provided in the following articles: Five Ways to Ensure Quality Manufacturing — Sourcing Success ’ Recognizing The Benefits of Standardization ’ The Importance of Packaging ’ 3 Ways to Improve Communications with Suppliers’ Classifying Defects.

Service Providers
Service providers must ensure:

  • To have clear and easy-to-understand terms and conditions. Ensure all necessary information is obtained from the client before work commences, and avoid repeated contacts for additional client input after commencing work.
  • Deliver the exact services within the deadline specified in the terms and conditions.
  • Be honest on what you can actually provide, do not overrate your services. By doing this, you can ensure that you would not disappoint any of your clients.

Provide Remarkable Customer Service

Customers will praise your goods with good reviews not just because they are satisfied with what you provide, but also because they like the way you provide it. This is where customer service comes into play.

You must always be willing to answer questions and comments no matter how positive or negative they are. Be sure to respond to them right away or as soon as possible: research shows that customers typically give up after a week of waiting for response to a complaint, and then go elsewhere. Unanswered queries also reflect badly on your brand name, fostering an image of arrogance and disregard for client welfare.

The more you value your clients, the more they will be loyal to you and your goods. Customer loyalty and appreciation bring in not only good reviews but also word-or-mouth referrals. Satisfied clients can and do translate to increased footfall and revenue, not only via repeat visit but through proliferation of recommendations and new business. Recommendations from happy clients have the ability to spread to venues no marketing can reach, through relatives and friends.

Get to the Root of Bad Comments

By uncovering where the problem started, you can formulate solutions to avoid the same thing happening again. Analyze customer complaints both to address and prevent re-occurrence.

Your business is only as strong as your weakest point. Negative feedback can be a blessing in disguise if handled well, as it offers the opportunity not only to locate weaknesses within the business, but also to impress the client with the excellence and celerity of your response. Some of the best brand ambassadors in terms of word-of-mouth and online recommendations are garnered through client interactions that started off negative, but were turned around into positive experiences that stand out from others. Take the case of a serious security breach in credit card transactions experienced by Target. The CEO wrote a letter of apology to the customers, and further, extended a 10% discount to clients who repeat visited on the following weekend. The breach could have been catastrophically bad publicity, but ended up having little to no effect on the company’s bottom line. However, a business with a preponderance of negative reviews will struggle to establish a good brand identity. All companies would want to keep their ratings high for the majority.

Learn To Handle Inevitable Destructive Comments

Great products and excellent customer service provision may minimize the destructive comments.This is however no guarantee that there will be no bad ones anymore. You will always gain unavoidable bad reviews from your customers no matter what you do. Some of those comments and reviews might be technically unjustified, as in customers who didn’t read the terms and conditions or the user’s manual, some are from power-trippers, land some are caused by costumers’ misinterpretation about the goods you provide. You can’t please everyone. Learn to sort out feedback between constructive and destructive ones. By the time you are in the business for long enough, you will be able to learn how to be thick-skinned against those unhelpful comments.

Call The Professionals

No-one can help you with developing your reputation better than a reputation developer. If you want the best for your business, there is the option of hiring a professional to do it. Most reputation developers offer a wide selection of packages which includes specific services and prices, from which you can find one that suits your business’s needs.

Some of their basic strategies and tactics to improve your brand name may include:

  • Optimization of the use of search engines and landing pages;
  • Sending private SMS and emails to your clients to ask for their feedback and reviews;
  • Managing and filtering bad comments and reviews in your page;
  • Seeking good reviews on other platforms such as social media which will make your business more attractive for the customers and;
  • Engaging you in customers’ campaigns and public relations activities

Reputation developers live and breathe handling and evaluating reviews. However, name and brand reputation creation doesn’t happen overnight. With patience and persistence, a reputation of great value can be built up, giving good returns on the initial investment in hiring the reputation developer. Highly respected businesses use the same tactics both to gain new clients and retain old ones, turning both the process of selling goods and growing assets into a faster, easier, more streamlined process.

If your online reputation is the foundation of your online business, then online reputation developers are the ones who can build that foundation.

For more tips and discussions regarding reputation development and management, you can visit the following pages:

http://www.click.co.uk/blog/reputation-management-best-practices/
http://www.internetmarketinginc.com/misc/best-practices-for-online-reputation-management/
http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/target-ceo-apology/#QkIzqvhfNmqA

Tags: Online Reputation Management

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