Reputation Management

What do you do to maintain your online reputation?

Gina

Are you referring to social networking like Facebook, Linkedin, etc or your website, blogs, etc?

As a manufacturer and supplier to the detail industry we have engaged a consultant to help us with our entire Social Networking Program and he is also redoing our website, etc.

Went to a all day seminar put on by the sister magazine of Professional Carwashing & Detailing that was in Portland for the carpet cleaning industry. It was great and if they would have changed the name from carpet cleaners to detailers it would have been very appropriate for detailers to attend.

One session on Social Media made it quite clear to me and, I think, the carpet cleaners in attendance that a small business today MUST have a Social Media program if they are to compete. It sure convinced me that hiring the consultant to do my program was the right move.

They even had a person there whose company handles the social media programs for small businesses like carpet cleaners and detailers.

Regards
Bud Abraham

Yes I am speaking about all those things but specifically about how do you manage your reputation on line. ...negative reviews and such

Today anyone having access to the internet can post negative reports, it could be your competitor, it could be any crack pot who does not like what you have said...who is not happy with a service you have provided even if the reason is unfounded. Recently a service provider was given a negative review on a popular referral site "A-----'s List" even though he had not provided any service to the person. His business was nevertheless given a bad review because he did not service the callers area. He is now suing the person for slander. There are companies that can help you for lack of a better word bury bad reviews so that the latest positive reviews will be the first seen...

Recently I have noticed insurance companies now offering insurance to cover this area "reputation management" and some of them provide PR consultation to manage bad incidents.

It is almost a full time job to have all those things in place...you are way ahead of most because you have the ability to write great content for website, blogs, facebook, twitter etc. and keep them fresh. A lot of people do not have the time or skill set. It is also very important when hiring a consultant that you have access to them and that they really know what they are doing. They should understand you and your business and should know how to design your website for optimum seo optimization..because even if you build the best looking site and people cannot find it..you would have wasted time and money.

There are also a lot of people today who claim to be experts at seo/social media and you have to be careful.. a friend paid $10,000 to build her site only to find out she is going to revamp /possibly build another because it has too much flash, site architecture not good and content was not written for seo optimization.. as a result the website cannot be found unless you had the web address and quite frankly the website does not reflect the type of business she is engaged in.. Another thing people should be aware of... is copying the content or the pictures from another persons site..google will penalize /punish you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2011 06:39PM by concoursgarage.

Gina

Great point about negative postings. Did not know there were companies that could help one manage that type of thing, would be interested in knowing how that is done or the company name that offers such a service.

One always has to be careful in hiring anyone to do work for them, especially if it is in an area in which they are not familiar.

What do you do to handle any negative commentary on line? Although I am certain that with your attention to detail and professionalism you do not get much, if any, negative commentary about your work and service.

Before the internet the way we handled any negative feelings from customers was to send them out a letter (now email) immediately after the detail service from me, thanking them for the business and if there was anything we could do to improve the service. We always kept the note positive. Surprisingly people would call me and say, "we were unhappy with the service, and vowed to never come back and to tell our friends not to patronize your shop, but when I got your letter I knew you were a concerned businessman who valued his customers and so I called to tell you......."

Worked like a charm, but I am sure there were many who were so upset they never called or came back.

Of course that is a bit off topic in terms of your comment about crackpots and competitors posting bad things about you.

Thanks for the post, very interesting

Bud Abraham


PS: The guy that I met at the Carpet Cleaners Seminar who manages a small company's Social Media is:

Mr Jim Tome
IMAGIN 8 SOCIAL MARKETING
jim.tome@imagin8marketing.com
815 508 3878

Interesting topic, Gina. I pay a lot of attention to reviews but keep my eyes open for bogus stuff. If something gets 5 stars from ten people and one star from one person, I read carefully to see if that one disgruntled customer is just a crackpot.

It is harder to spot those with a hidden agenda, such as competitors, who may be less than objective in their appraisals. Example : Zaino has been wrongly rated by people who sell other brands of detailing products ( I won't mention any names LOL ).

The key is to see if the person posting the info has said anything you know is untrue, to see if he seems to be sensible and to compare his findings to the rest of the reviewers' .

Example : I found bogus information posted on a forum about car problems. A little Googling confirmed that outside of two guys on that forum, no one on the entire Internet had such horrendous experience with a particular car.

I hope others are as skeptical as I am.
Doug

No one has posted bad things about me.. but I have read read reviews on other business sites where complaints were obviously written about them by crackpots and competitors.

Doug: Unfortunately not many people are as objective as you are...

Here is a possible solution to the problem of unfairly negative reviews .

At the bottom of the customer's receipt or on a separate paper, print the following : " Below are Internet links to sites where you can post a review of our services. If you are a satisfied customer, we'd appreciate your posting reviews to let others know about us.
If you are not 100 percent satisfied, please call and give us a chance to resolve your concerns before posting your reviews .
Thank you.
( signetures and names of the whole staff )

( Links to Web review sites ) "

If I'm right, the bad publicity will be buried by the good reviews.