7 Best Practices For Online Reputation Management
Mobile phones have made their way to our pockets. Today, anyone can share good or bad experiences of a brand instantly on the Internet. Within a couple of minutes, one can do research on your brand and know what experiences your former customers had with you. It is a well-known fact that buying decision of a potential customer is greatly influenced by your online reputation. In this article, we are presenting you seven best practices to enhance your online reputation management.
1. Be Alert & Keep Monitoring
Monitoring your online reputation is an important part of online reputation management (ORM). By keeping track of your online reputation you can know the real-time sentiment of your customers and probable customers towards your brand and plan your strategy accordingly. There are various free tools available to monitor your online reputation effortlessly. Below are the best five: ● Google Alerts ● Social Mention ● IFTTT ● Image Raider ● Talkwalker Free Social Search
2. Deliver Excellent Customer Service
A good business with great customer service is the basic foundation for an excellent online reputation. Unhappy or unsatisfied customers are the main source of negative comments and reviews. With excellent customer service, your customers will have no reasons to post negative reviews or comments.
3. Understand Your Audience
The audience of the businesses varies in gender, region, age, culture, etc. Hence their behavior varies. Understanding your audience is important to find answers for these basic questions: ● What puts them off? ● What interests them? ● How will they react if something goes wrong? ● Which social media networks will they use to express their grievance? ● What it takes to make them happy again?
4. Detect The Cause Of Negative Reviews
Ignoring negative reviews can be hazardous to your business. Always invest some time to read negative reviews, and figure out the cause. One mistake and your listing might get flooded with negative reviews. Fixing the root cause will avoid further negative comments and makes your business more customer-friendly.
5. Interact With The Customers
Having a friendly interaction with all customers is good practice. Calmly respond to both happy as well as unhappy customers. It will give the impression that a customer’s words matters to you. Publicly apologize if any inconvenience is caused. Tell your side of the story without being defensive.
6. Plan Ahead
The most common mistake that beginners do is to wait until something goes wrong. Reading negative reviews is a painful experience. You might make a wrong move in the nervousness. An inappropriate reply can do more damage than the negative comment. Pre-planning will help you deal with such problems smoothly and professionally.
7. Don’t Neglect Offline Reputation
Online reputation is important, no doubt. Along with that, offline reputation is also equally important. Neglecting offline reputation and solely focusing on online reputation is not a good idea. Your reputation in the offline world will reflect in the online world. Establish a good relationship with your customers and encourage satisfied customers to leave a review.