How To Recover From A Bad Reputation In Business
If you plan on running a business for long, you best make sure that you're working towards building a solid reputation. If not, other businesses and customers in bad moods will eat you alive. Not that you're going to be totally despised, but it's just the facts of life. You must absolutely learn how to manage the reputation of your business.
Monitoring your personal reputation or business brand is very critical to online reputation management. Set up automatic alerts to happen when your name comes up. Use Trackur, Monitor This and Google Alerts to send you notices when new content comes up. That way, you can know the very next day, if not sooner, when someone is talking about you.
Host contests to help bolster your reputation. This is especially important if you have received a bad review. A contest will create a lot of positive information about your company which can help increase your company's exposure online. This technique will also help raise your page rank on Internet search engines.
Set realistic expectations with your customers. If you own a small business, let your customers know when you will respond to their questions. If you cannot answer every question immediately, place a banner saying that all questions will be answered within a certain amount of time, such as within 72 hours.
Watch social networks. According to Arnold Worldwide, over half the customers expect answers to their comments and questions on social networks. Be sure that you're replying fast, preferably in a couple of hours at least. Because many other businesses are not quite that vigilant, your response time will help you to stand out.
Always be fair with your employees. Not taking this seriously can lead to irreparable damage. If others spread the word that you aren't a good boss, then a lot of potential customers might refuse to have anything to do with your business.
Try Googling yourself to see what type of information comes up about you. If there is a lot of negative feedback, you can use this to better yourself. In the event that you notice any discrepancies, you should do your best to correct them. You wouldn't want any misinformation to damage your reputation.
Write articles on other sites for a better online business reputation. This can help many people see you as a professional. End your articles with your name, company, and a link back to your website. Where you write will depend on the purpose of your business, your niche, and your target audience. Try to keep the content as relevant to these items as possible.
Pay attention to the reputation your business has offline. Your offline reputation will make its way into the online world. If negative content on your company becomes a trend, you need to know why. Treat all your clients and customers well and urge the happy ones to leave positive reviews on sites like Yelp.
Some people are simply impossible to please reasonably. If you believe your customer has a irrelevant or untruthful complaint, do what you can to make them happy. As a business owner, sometimes you have to suck up your pride and think about how your customer or client is always right.
You may become angered when you read a negative comment about your business. Your best approach would be to respond calmly with facts to debunk what the original poster said. When readers look at both sides of the argument, they can make their own judgement.
If your company has a negative review online, do not overreact. One of the worst things a company can do is respond to a negative comment or complaint with anger. Also, do not try to retaliate against whoever posted the complaint. These types of reaction are not going to solve the problem and will only draw more attention to all the negativity.
Stick to any promise your business makes. If you keep changing the terms, you will lose trust quickly. Your company will get a reputation as being dishonest. Once you have your business get a reputation like this, it can take some time to get people to trust you again.
Something like a breach of security in a customer database can really damage a company's reputation. If your company experienced this problem, do not try to hide it. Notify your customers right away and assure them that measures will be taken to boost security of your data. You can minimize damage to your company's reputation with this approach.
The keys to good online reputation management are planning, careful monitoring of your social media sites and expert use of search engine optimization. These key activities will help you predict and avoid problems caused by disgruntled customers and trolls. Be sure to remove damaging comments that add nothing to your social media interactions and use keywords well to keep your best content at the top of search engine rankings.
When people say negative things about you, it hurts. But, you must take caution before responding. Take time to ponder how you will react to the problem and then deal with it correctly. Taking time before responding can help you avoid hurting your online reputation.
Be prepared for anything when it comes to managing the reputation of your business. From nasty made-up rumors to seriously upset customers, you never know what may suddenly come up and harm your ability to conduct business. A good crisis management plan should be in place at all times and handled by a very competent team.
To better gauge your own business reputation, keep an eye on those of your competitors. Check the websites and blogs of other relative businesses, and see how your company measures up. You will also get some great ideas on how to improve your products, customer service and public relations - all of which are essential to your bottom line!
Time to turn on the ignition switch and get these ideas into action. Making sure you have an upstanding reputation within your industry is what it's all about. Now that you have this advice, you have some things you need to be doing. Keeping your business image where it should be keeps those customers coming to your place.