What Is Reputation Management?
Reputation management is the process of keeping track what people are saying about your business. Your reputation consists of online reviews, comments, and information listings. Managing your reputation involves searching what customers are searching about your business, and responding to customer reviews. You want to make sure that negative comments are addressed and fixed, and that positive ones are acknowledged and noted.
Customer reviews are located on pages like Yelp, Angie’s List, and Google+. By responding to reviews and comments in a courteous and professional manner, you’ll be able to show customers that you care about their experience. Keeping listing sites up to date with your current contact information also lets customers see that you’re open to hearing from them.
Why Is Reputation Management Important?
Your online reputation is a make or break moment for customer decisions. In fact, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. All it takes is one bad review or comment to tarnish a reputation that you worked hard to build. Ignoring negative reviews will create the impression that you don’t care about fixing your mistakes, and could cost you an important sale.
Reputation management drives growth and sales for small businesses. Research by Harvard University shows that 1 star difference on Yelp can lead to 5% – 9% business lost. This is devastating for growth, especially if negative reviews accumulate over time. Resolving issues immediately, and keeping track of your online reputation is necessary to ensure that it doesn’t lead to a loss in future sales.
How To Manage Your Reputation
Now that you know what reputation management is, and why it’s important – here are some best practices to keep your business reputation positive.
- Create a reputation management strategy that promotes your best, most positive content. Host positive reviews on your social media or website to ensure they gain visibility.
- Be transparent and apologize for any mistakes immediately. Address all issues swiftly to limit the number of people who see the negative reviews.
- When apologizing, be kind, professional, and factual. Offer to speak with reviewers personally, and leave contact information when appropriate.
- Ask customers who enjoyed their experience with you to leave reviews on your directory pages.
- Avoid making the same mistakes. Disparaging reviews are disheartening, but they’re also a great source of information to learn and improve form.
For more tips and best practices be sure to contact us.