If you have any kind of online presence, customers, readers, followers, or whatever you call them, are talking about you. Whether it’s comments on your blog, tweets about your business, or reviews and feedback on sites like Yelp or Epinions, the Internet has made it easy for everyone to make their views known. And that’s a good thing. You want people to talk about your company, because the more people talk, the more recognition you get, and the awareness of your company grows, which of course is ultimately good for the bottom line. So today, more than ever, it’s important for entrepreneurs to build and maintain a great reputation. But what happens when the things being said about you or your company are less than flattering? What if they’re down right negative? A bad reputation can spread quickly online, and it’s imperative to get a handle on it before it harms your business.
If a former employee, angry customer, or even a vendor who’s mad that you switched suppliers decides to let loose with an attack on your company’s reputation, even if it’s unjustified, you’re going to have a very difficult time erasing it. When someone posts something about you online, their motives are hidden, so no one knows if their statements are legitimate or underhanded. And the worst part is that the comments can have a long half-life in search results, well beyond the day they were first posted. So what can you do to protect your reputation and perform damage control when necessary?
1. Have a plan. It’s important to have a program in place to seek out and deal with customer complaints head on. Rather than being surprised that someone has aired their grievances online, expect that it will happen and be ready to deal with it. The key to protecting your reputation is a speedy, well-thought-out response. It’s also a good idea to have a plan to use customer feedback to adjust your products, services and policies. While there are still situations where companies hire focus groups, the Internet has created a massive focus group, free to anyone who decides to use it properly.
2. Fight fire with fire. If there are going to be negative statements about your company online, one tactic for dealing with them is to make sure they’re outnumbered by positive statements. Launch a strong offensive that includes a targeted campaign of positive publicity on every network you can access. If you have employees, get them to help you. Be careful though. If it’s obvious that biased comments are coming from internal sources, you can do more damage than good. Take steps to make sure this isn’t the case, while always being honest. In other words, don’t say a comment is a testimonial from a customer if it isn’t. Instead, if the comment is coming from the company, keep it more general. If a customer provides a recommendation or compliment, get permission to quote them, and get it out there for all to see.
3. Follow up with your customers. This is just good business in general. If a customer has a concern, it’s always a good idea to address it right away, regardless of the fact that it can affect your online reputation. If you’re seeing a pattern in negative comments, you clearly have a problem that needs to be address. So be thankful you’re getting the feedback, and take care of the issue before it grows bigger. Then communicate honestly about the problem and the solution you’ve provided. These days transparency is key. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes and shortcomings, as long as you’re also showing a willingness and ability to address them effectively. But be aware of one danger when responding directly to comments on many sites: your responses can serve to keep the thread alive and drive it up in search engine rankings. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’ve very effectively addressed the situation, but it could serve to bring attention to what, for some people, was an otherwise unknown problem.
4. Be proactive. Rather than waiting for negative feedback to happen out in the online public, actively solicit feedback from your customers and give them an opportunity to easily provide you with their complaints, compliments, and ideas. Then follow up on all the communications promptly to avoid frustrated, public message board rants. Again, this is good business anyway. Soliciting feedback from customers allows you to get better and deliver what people want, which ultimately goes right to your bottom line.
Bottom line: The more popular your company, product, service, or blog is, the higher the chances that someone is out there spouting off negative stuff about you. It’s a part of the user-built Internet that we have to accept, and in many ways, it’s a positive thing – for consumers and for companies. But while preventing any negative comments is unrealistic, dealing with them effectively can be as easy as following the above practices.
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Well written as usual. This is one of the most common problem for popular business especially online business.
You will see people saying negative things about a product in forums and like what you say, it is very hard to know the real motive of the person.
You have provided a good solution to a common problem.
Good article. I agree with you. It is also important to think about customers that tend to criticize your services as “helpers”.
I mean, if they are happy, it is possible that other customers will be more than happy.
That is what happened to Dell in the past…after they understood the importance of their clients’ opinions they re-built their reputation.
These are food for thought.
Actually, food for not only thought. This is like real food.
one customer commenting bad about you could cost a lot to you later. so we try to take care of everyone very well. even if they are hard to deal with or ask crazy things. overall the business wins even if you sacrifice some policies.
Yes, online reputation is so important. It could be the line between me deciding to go with that provider or possibly not.
Cheers, this is valuable information. You just never know when it may come handy in today’s super-sensitive business environment. The customer has always been king but today, he has a bigger mouth than ever before. :D
Till then,
Jean
Its one of the worst things that can happen to a business or a community. Being proactive about it is definitely a good thing but ultimately it will be up to the customers to react to your moves, and help propel your company back up. Always remember though.. to not let a “few” bad eggs, lead you to think that there is a bigger issue at hand, because sometimes it can be deceiving.
Hi guys,
Great Blog. It’s very important that we know how to deal with damaged online rep. Because if you don’t it can really hurt your busines. Thanks for sharing.
Kind regards,
Sam
X
At one of my last jobs I had to deal with ‘hiding’ a forum post that was bashing my employer. My plan of attack was to simply get more higher PR sites mentioning our company name. In the end it pushed that bad page off of page #1 when searching for their company.
Our local city government (in Fredericton) has a great way to deal with a bad online reputation … if they don’t like what you’re saying on their Facebook group, they simple deactivate it.
Taking negative feedback in a positive way is the way to go!
Reputation management is all about your +ve review with respect to readers.
I think it’s important to “own your top ten”. Have control over the top ten results that show up for your company name and continue to improve the seo to each one. This will make it harder for someone to pop up for your name and hurt your pr. It’s very hard to do, but sites like facebook, twitter and youtube are all sites that marketers should be vested in anyway, and they will do the trick as far as optimizing for your company name.
Take steps to make sure this isn’t the case, while always being honest. In other words, don’t say a comment is a testimonial from a customer if it isn’t. Instead, if the comment is coming from the company, keep it more general…
Always remember though.. to not let a “few” bad eggs, lead you to think that there is a bigger issue at hand, because sometimes it can be deceiving.
I had a wet straightener and I didn’t use it on my wet hair, but it worked so good, but it broke. It never damaged my hair and it left it so soft and silky. The ceramic ones are okay, but the ceramic usually chips off to bare metal which is bad for your hair. I have one right now that works pretty good though.
These are food for thought.
I’m not sure “fighting fire with fire” is the correct approach to take for online reputation management.
It may put you in a light that will actually end up harming you more in the long run.