Your reputation is what is keeping you in business. Neglect your reputation, and your business is set to fail. Managing your reputation is an essential part of running your business and should be attended to. Use the following tips to take care of your reputation and keep yourself in business.
Posting information on social media sites is essential to your business’s reputation. You should post several times a week at the very least to effectively run a marketing campaign. If you find that posting on social media sites is overwhelming, consider hiring an assistant to make your posts for you.
A good offense is always the best defense when considering your brand’s online image. If you work on boosting positive feedback, it will make the negative stuff fade away. The more positive content there is, the less impact negative comments will have.
Set realistic expectations with your customers. If you own a small business, let your customers know when you will respond to their questions. If you cannot answer every question immediately, place a banner saying that all questions will be answered within a certain amount of time, such as within 72 hours.
Be transparent. Some companies have been accused of removing complaints from their website. Don’t be like them. Instead, quickly answer the complaints and state how you will remedy the complaint on your website. Once the complaint is resolved, ask your customer to post on your site that the complaint was resolved and how long it took to resolve the complaint.
Take your time and think carefully before responding to any complaints. Keeping calm and carefully thinking of how you will respond online can keep your reputation intact. Before posting a reply to a complaint, read your answer several times. Have an employee read the response to ensure it is appropriate.
It is wise to follow up with customers once they make a purchase. It may be that their issues do not arise until later down the road. Checking with your customers permits you to handle any problems that may have occurred.
Be super careful with any information you think you should share online. You don’t know how others will use it later, so be careful. Even if you only have a small number of people visiting your social media sites, you still should be cautious.
Maintain good communication with your customers to develop a good reputation. Customers do not like to be in the dark about things. They will appreciate this good service when you keep them updated and informed. Their trust in your company will grow, and your reputation will improve.
Something like a breach of security in a customer database can damage a company’s reputation. If your company has experienced this problem, do not try to hide it. Notify your customers right away and assure them that measures will be taken to boost the security of your data. You can minimize damage to your company’s reputation with this approach.
Check results about your business every month. Always Google your company name and review your whole website. Find out if there is anything negative. Please keep track of where the negative things are coming from. Take steps to mitigate them.
Having a reasonable number of high-quality subdomains can help you build credibility and establish a good reputation. You can create two or three subdomains, each focusing on a single product, service, or aspect of your top-level domain. To create a new page, you would add the product or service name as a prefix to your domain name. Be careful not to make too many of these pages because it can backfire on you and lower your search engine rankings.
It is usually acceptable to offer a small incentive to encourage a customer to leave a review for your company. However, a stimulus with a significant dollar value may be inappropriate because it is like buying a vote. Check the policy of the review site to see where they stand on the issue of incentives.
Make the most of social media to build a solid online reputation. Be sure your company name plays prominently on your social media pages. If you have a couple of dozen fans on your Facebook page, get a custom URL that includes your company’s name. This is also possible with LinkedIn. Your company name in your URL will help rank your social media page higher in search engines.
Web-users often look at a company’s rating before doing business with it. As a business owner, you should know if you have one or two-star ratings. If so, you may want to consider responding to those. This can balance out the adverse effects of a one-star rating.
Look for the potential good in any online conflict. It is far easier to learn from your own experiences than to listen and reading about resolving online disputes. After a competition is over, seek out the learning opportunities it presents. If the conflict caught people’s attention, you would like to know, use it as a springboard to improve your online social and business circles.
Do not ruin your reputation by responding angrily to a negative comment. Do not let emotions be a factor in your response. If you feel things are getting out of hand, be the bigger person and stop responding.
Having a good reputation as an employer is also good for your business. Your employees are often in the first line of contact with your customers. An employee with a positive attitude about his job shows through in the service that he offers to customers. Therefore, treat your employees well.
Conclusion:
There is one thing that keeps the customers coming, and that is a good reputation. If you neglect it, it will soon take a life of its own. Remember the tips listed above to keep your reputation high. It is the best way to keep your business running well.
