When someone attacks you,your company’s brand or your personal or business reputation,the last thing you want to do is be complacent. Along the same lines as -,you may need to implement more than one process or strategy to manage your reputation,depending upon the sort of risk your business is open to.
Whether or not you choose to make yourself public on the Internet,you’ll still have an online presence. This isn’t just true of celebrities,this is true of most anybody. Lots of customers find social media the first way to look for a fast response and direct access and get in contact with companies. Naturally,this makes social media the first place you want to broadly and fully deploy your best customer reviews to the public eye.
You can improve your online presence even further with more places to publish reviews,such as a blog,active social media involvement,personal profiles,and more.
In addition,on review sites or online directory listings that you manage,such as Google Maps,you can directly stay in contact with your customers,handle complaints if any,and reply to their comments. Just replying to reviews alone will show an increase in commitment & power on your part as a business owner – especially when it comes to acknowledging the plight of the person you’re replying to.
Which brings us to the next point: verifying the truthfulness of a review. In your online reputation management,you must monitor your customer feedback very closely,and make sure every review that comes to you,matches up to a customer who you’ve actually served and who’s on your records. This is so important because some negative reviews can be from jealous competitors vying for attention.
First of all,to get an idea of whether the complaint is true or false,take a look at the reviewer’s handle,how many reviews they’ve posted,the nature of their reviews if they’ve left more than 1,and their history on Google Maps. If the review is posted by one person only,or that person posts only one type of review – fake negative reviews trying to undermine businesses of all kinds – then most likely their comments are untrustworthy,and asking them: “We’ve never had you on record as a customer…is this a possible competitor review?” Don’t sound angry,sound respectful – because fighting fire with fire in public can backfire and leave a nasty burn on your reputation.
Some fake negative reviews can even be pessimistic,assumptive comments posted by people who,while not having worked with you,approach your line of work with a certain skepticism,and want to never miss the first opportunity to blindly denounce the industry based on hearsay and myths without taking a moment to see its virtues.
While it is much more comfortable dealing with kudoses,negative feedback is not always easy to treat with. When you learn how to correctly handle negative feedback,and bolster the positive attributes of what you do just like - does,there is a better chance you will find another customer giving similar negative feedback in future,apart from anything else.
