Reputation Management: Best Practices for Professionals

Your online reputation has become one of the biggest decision-making factors in the purchasing funnel. Here are 5 practices that you can – and should – implement today:

1. Understand that Negative Content is Unavoidable and Take Pre-Emptive Action. Negative content may come from a customer who was impossible to please, a disgruntled employee or from someone who just had a poor experience. Fair or not, eventually you will have to defend your reputation. Many businesses only engage negative reviews. This is a mistake.

• Be proactive. Respond to positive reviews continuously.
• For negative reviews: actively engage, avoid online confrontation & offer a solution.

2. Choose Your ORM Solution. Options for improving a company's online reputation are to handle it in-house or to outsource it to a reputation management firm.

• Understand that online reputation management is a specialized task
• Most companies lack the experience, perspective and/or resources to successfully manage it themselves
• If outsourced, ensure that the firm hired to do the job operates in an ethical manner.

3. Resolve Negative Comments Quickly & Post Your Solution. Solving a customer’s complaint is no longer enough. It must be done quickly and the solution must be posted online as a response to the complaint.

• Address complaints quickly (typically within 24 hours or less)
• Follow-up and post your solution in response to the complaint

4. Respond to All Comments. Both positive and negative comments should receive a response. Ignoring negative comments can do tremendous damage to your reputation. Conversely, engaging with positive comments helps create brand ambassadors

• Build credibility by responding to negative comments
• Generate brand ambassadors by engaging with positive comments

5. Be Vigilant and Be Patient, Your Good Reputation Will Attract More Customers. ORM is similar to search engine optimization in that results are rarely realized at an immediately recognizable pace .  By committing to ORM, you will minimize the impact of negative comments by focusing consumers on what’s best about doing business with you.