Manage your company’s reputation online

Do you have an online store? Right now, some blogger might be posting a negative review about your products or services. This message will be read by virtually all people from his contact list – say, 25 bloggers. Just think - you will lose 25 prospective customers! 

If the bloggers repost this unflattering review, the number of lost customers will increase. Everybody is likely to trust negative reviews from their friends. So what can you do to protect your reputation online? 

Small businesses are very vulnerable to negative comments, posts and complaints spread about them through blogs, message boards and other social media tools. Think of your latest important purchase: did you read users’ reviews online or rely exclusively on the retailer’s official description telling about numerous benefits of this product? Even older customers who rarely communicate online are still doing their homework and searching reviews online. 

A negative response can ruin your company’s reputation, decrease sales and even sink your entire business. Rumors, a time-old phenomenon, are spread on the Internet at fantastic speed. Any information can reach thousands of Internet users within just one day! 

A lot of business owners don’t know - and don’t care - what their customers are saying about them online. It can be a costly mistake. A company’s reputation is among its most valuable assets. 

When there are numerous unflattering reviews about your online store, brand, products and services, you can lose employees, customers, and investors. So let the Internet world know about your company in a positive way! The reputation of your business is in your hands.

How can you track your company’s name online? 

I have two pieces of news for you: a good one and a bad one. The problem is that online discussions are being held without our consent. You can’t forbid or pre-moderate negative comments about your company! All you can do is some damage control. 

The good news is that there are numerous free online tools you can use to monitor what people are saying about your company. They include (but not limited to):
•    Standard search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Live, Lycos, etc.)
•    Google Alerts
•    Yahoo! Alerts 
•    Google News 
•    Technorati.com (search engine for user-generated media)
•    Backtype.com, coComment.com (tools for monitoring blog comments)
•    BlogPulse.com (trend discovery system for blogs)
•    BoardTracker.com, Boardreader.com, BigBoards.com (track all threads on forums and boards). 
•    Keotag.com (a social search engine) 
•    Yacktrack.com (search engine for comments from various sources). 
•    Search.Twitter.com, Twilert.com, TweetBeep.com (search for tweets)

Just enter your company’s name, brand, product, services, key employees and get the results. There is no need to hire a special person tracking all negative reviews full-time – you can use an RSS reader to create feeds and compile results. It will take just a few minutes a day to read what people are saying about your company online. 

Do you want to be an observer, a participant or a loser?

Thanks to the simple and convenient process of publishing content on the web, everybody can post a review about your store or products you sell. If you have found positive reviews and comments about your company - congratulations! Use this information to build your brand online. 

For example, you can add these comments to your testimonials section, tell about them in your corporate blog or create links to websites with positive reviews (it may improve the ranking of these pages).

But what if you have found an unflattering message? Solve this problem immediately. Even if you don’t want to talk to this customer ever again, playing hide and seek is not a good tactics for any business planning to stay in the market for a long time. 

If you do everything right, you can turn your unhappy customer into your big fan. Financial gurus say that it costs far less to keep an existing customer than to gain a new one. So how can you save money and build your reputation online?

Going from zero to hero

The best way to change your customer’s mind is to start by apologizing for whatever upset them. Ask your lost customer to give you one more chance and say that their happiness with your products or services is your biggest concern. Most people post complaints just because they want to be heard.

Stick to this rule: “The customer is always right even when they aren’t.” So when you see an Internet user who blames you for his own faults, don’t make any negative comments. Show attentiveness, empathy, and offer solutions! Even it is just your competitor spreading rumors about your company; your position will deserve respect. 

If it was your fault don’t be afraid to say so! People understand. After all, we are all human, yep? It is necessary to be transparent in your dealings or the negative responses will only continue to get worse. Explain what you have done to rectify the issue.

Offer your angry customer a discount or free shipping for next purchase. This simple trick will let you show that you value your customers. Yes, you may lose some money but your business reputation costs much more. The best sales prospect is a prospect that is already converted – in other words, one of your current customers. 

When you fix the problem, don’t forget to tell about it. You can post the customer’s complaint, how you fixed it and the customer’s response on your website’s service page or guest book. It will show how responsive you are to your customer’s concerns. 

Of course, there is always a temptation to remove negative comments. You can try to talk to moderators of contact the right people. However, it rarely works if your service was really bad. Any negative comments posted on a blog or forum may be considered as free speech. 

A polite response to unflattering reviews shows that you care about your customers and about your business reputation! It will help you build long standing relationships with your customers. They will visit your website again and make a purchase (remember about discounts?). 

Some final words

Nobody likes to receive complaints - it is a serious scratch on our ego. But keep in mind that every business and every individual has the potential to become the object of a positive or negative buzz. Even the most powerful corporations are exposed to this. 

Try to focus on positive sides of online negative publicity. A complaining customer is an excellent opportunity to improve your service not only for them, but for all future customers. Try to incorporate their feedback into further developments of your product or service. It will help you get higher returns and better sales down the road.