Reputation is crucial in the business world. Businesses that have a poor reputation can have a very hard time surviving for long. With the following advice, you can learn how to create and maintain a great reputation over the long haul.
To enhance your reputation, follow through with the customers to be sure they’re satisfied. This is especially true if you have a larger business. The customers need to feel important. Implement some automated systems that will follow up with customers. You can also ask them to give comments on recent transactions.
Offense is the way to prevent reputation decay. Ensure you have much positivity surrounding your brand, and this will likely squelch any negativity. Negative remarks will continue to fall in the search lists as more and more positive comments build up.
Optimize your web pages. For example, your company name plus “best” or “trustworthy”. Search engines, such as Google, like authoritative pages. If you’re viewed as an authority, your business will move up the search engine.
Social Networks
Keep an eye on social networks. According to Arnold Worldwide, over half the customers expect answers to their comments and questions on social networks. Therefore, make sure to monitor the comments about your business. Because many other businesses are not quite that vigilant, your response time will help you to stand out.
Watch your presence online. You don’t know when a negative comment is made so you have to check often. Checking the results on a search engine will allow you to keep negative things from going to the top. Try this at least twice a month.
Social Media
Pay attention to what’s going on in social media. Many people talk about businesses on social media. If you keep tabs on these sites, you will see negative remarks before they can do any real damage. That can help protect your company from bad press.
As your business grows, you are going to get more and more customer interaction. This will lead to a lot more complaints. Address these fast so that they do not become an issue.
You need to be working on things to set up proper expectations that have to do with how you’re doing business. This means to be upfront with your customers. If there’s a mistake that gets made, you need to know how to handle it well. Transparency across your whole business is needed if you want a good reputation.
Never cover up mistakes that happen at your company. Modern customers are smarter than that. Freely admit your mistake, and humbly apologize for it. You can often get customer forgiveness this way, particularly when you do something extra to set things straight.
You should contact your customers a few times after they have purchased something from you. It is not unusual for issues to arise a few weeks after the purchase, and sometimes customers do not use new products immediately. If you check in with customers, you will have an opportunity to respond to any concerns they may have.
Begin volunteering around your community. This is a great way to be sure you’re improving the company you have and its reputation. It’s a positive way to reach out to new and old customers alike. It can certainly help your business.
In order to manage your online reputation, you need to be aware of all the places people are discussing your company and monitor what they are saying. Find out what sites are popular for customers that want to leave feedback for companies in your industry. Respond to criticism quickly and link to the more positive comments.
Many sites exist where you can get fake, yet positive, reviews, and it might look like your competition is willingly using them. Resist the temptation to join them. This is bad business, and it’s even illegal in some states.
If you’re selling services or products, offer a guarantee of money back without asking any questions. Doing so is part of excellent customer service. When something a customer purchased is returned, you might lose its profit margin because it can’t be resold as new. However, you’re going to get points in having a reputation that’s good in the corporate sense.
It’s no secret that a good reputation is a business advantage. When it starts to falter, your business will often falter as well. The important part is to manage your reputation effectively and stick with your routine. Remember what you learned in this article and you will have a head start on the competiton.