Reputation Management

The way that consumers feel about you or your company is hugely important in terms of your overall success.  When you decide on the brand that you want to represent you - either individually or as a recognizable connection to your company - it is crucial for you to stay aware of the feelings that your existing or potential customers associate with it.  This is what is referred to as your “brand reputation” and it might make more of a difference than you would guess. 

When your brand reputation is positive, it’s much more likely that potential customers will seek out your product or service, and feel more positively about it even before their purchase.  This is obviously favorable to having to try and win over customers who have begun to associate your brand with an unfairly negative reputation that was due more to a shortfall in brand maintenance than to any actual performance issues with your service or product. 

Here are five useful ways that you can give your brand reputation a boost that will draw more customers your way:

Respond Consistently and Promptly

A responsive customer service presence can go a long way toward building up your brand reputation and really, is just good business practice.  Whether a customer sends a direct email, writes a product or service review, or posts on your company’s social media pages, they should receive a response in a timely manner and of the appropriate tone.  Was there praise for your product?  Politely thank them.  Did they have a negative experience?  Reach out and make an attempt to contact them privately to address the problem.

Get Good Reviews from Your Customers

When a customer is pleased, they are almost always willing to give you a good review!  Give satisfied customers the opportunity to do so by contacting them immediately after they have received your product or been happy with your service.  The sooner you can prompt them for a review, the better it’s likely to be.

Own Up to Mistakes

Everyone makes a mistake sometimes. This is unavoidable human nature.  For this reason, people are willing to listen to an explanation or an apology, even from a business or company - but waste no time and craft a response that is honest and clear.  If there is a legitimate reason that you should be issuing an apologetic statement on behalf of your company, then it’s best to admit it. 

Follow Your Reviews

There are a lot of different ways to set up notifications that will alert you when your brand is mentioned online and it’s worth the effort to make sure that you see as many as possible.  This is useful not only for the sake of responsiveness but also as a kind of temperature gauge about how your brand is being perceived.  It can also help you head off potentially damaging statements about your company.  Word travels unbelievably fast on the internet and one bad comment can rapidly turn into fifty.                

Utilize Automated Tools  

All of the methods mentioned here can be simplified significantly by using one of the many tools now available to manage the reputation of your brand.  Of those tools, one of the most useful is the online resource YouReview, which can cover all of the points touched on above and then some.  It can track brand mentions and alert you about them, push positive reviews out to your social media accounts automatically, and prompt customers to review your company at the moment best primed for positive feedback.

The constant online presence of customers who now have a much louder voice when it comes to product or company satisfaction has changed the way that people do business.  While this can admittedly sometimes be a double-edged sword, with the right management and tools, it’s far simpler now to build up a great brand reputation much faster than ever before.