What is Reputation Management?

What is Reputation Management?

Every business is dependent on their reputation being very high.  Customers rely on your reputation provided by family, friends and now the internet. It used to be people would only ask friends and family about businesses, but the internet has changed that. 

People have shifted to searching the internet more than any other way for discover businesses they want to work with.  Browsing the internet for reviews is much faster than asking around for a business with an excellent reputation for customer service, products and pricing.

Think about the last time you went to buy something and didn’t look online to see what the best product or brand to buy was?  Did you check the reviews of a restaurant or movie before you went to it?  Searching for interviews and relying on them is now common. 

 Does the business have a website or Facebook page?  A lot of people won’t even consider a business that doesn’t have a website or Facebook page. People want to see you have a presence and that you have a good reputation on the internet.

Everyone wants to make sure they get the best product or service they can, and reviews are becoming the strongest reference for purchases.  All you have to do is look at any online store and look at the reviews.  When looking at reviews how often do you decide to buy the item with one review?  Do you want to go to the business with a 2 or a 5 star rating?  

Customer are looking for a high number of reviews and the higher the rating the more you want to buy that product or buy from business.  Many people will filter out anything lower than 4 stars for their searches so you need ensure you’re that high.  If people don’t see your product they definitely won’t be buying it.

How do I know what my reputation is?

Your online reputation is based on the reviews of your products and services provided by people to online services like Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor or RateMDs.  These services have become vital to the buying public for guidance on what to buy and where to get the product or service they want.  You can look at any of these sites individually to see the reviews people are leaving and discover what they think of you. 

The only problem with having to go to each site is that it’s very time consuming.  Reputation Management Tools allow you to manage all your ratings in one place.   Easily track your and respond to your reviews and you don’t have to worry about where the review came from, the tool will manage all that for you.

If you’re too busy to monitor and respond to reviews, there are review management agencies that can manage them for you.  Reputational management agencies make it easier for businesses to manage their online reputation while maximizing positive comments. It’s their customers that they are really looking out for.

Once you see your ratings and can manage them you need to start managing your reviews.  You can review them but if you don’t manage them customers don’t know if you care.  You always want your customer to know your listening, so management of reviews is incredibly important.

How Do I Manage My Ratings?

It doesn’t matter if your ratings are good or bad, they still need to be managed.  Customers want to know you hear both their complaints and their compliments. Let them know your listening!

                                                            Bad Reviews

Bad reviews need to be answered and should be used discover how the issue can be mitigated.  When a business receives a bad review the worst thing to do is ignore it. If you ignore a bad review, the potential customer will take it as if you don’t care.  Businesses need to take the time and respond to a bad review with concern and ask if there is any way to rectify the issue. 

The damage of bad reviews is growing everyday especially with the growth of mobile searches.  When people are looking for a restaurant or retail store they will look at yelp or tripadvisor to see what the reviews are before they stop into eat.  The reviews on those sites can be the difference between a new customer and someone walking to the place next door. 

Reviewing your bad reviews lets you know if there are issues with your products or service so you can rectify the situation.  Understanding the issue and providing a customer that leaves a bad review with confidence you are working on or have fixed the issue goes a long way to getting them to give you a second chance. 

Sometimes all you can say to a bad review is that you’re sorry they had a bad experience, and we hope you give us another chance or please contact us directly so we can help you.  It’s a small thing but it goes a long way.

                                                            Good Reviews

 Don’t think because you received a good review you don’t need to respond to it.  Take the time to let customers that gave you a good review know that you’re listening and thank them for spending their money with you. 

It’s amazing how much a few words can impact the way your customers and potential customers feel about you and your business.

At Advanced Site Exposure we work with businesses to get reviews and make sure they are addressing them.  If you’re interested in discovering your companies online reputation we provide a free report.  We also have tools that help you request reviews and pull them all into one tool for you to respond to them.

For more information go to our website and find out more at advancedsiteexposure.com