Are you one of the many business owners or managers who find it difficult to manage online reputation? There are literally hundreds of places where your customers can go to share their opinions. While the specific sites and services will continue to evolve over time, there will always be a need for solid strategies to grow, improve and sustain a business’ online reputation.
Although each review site is unique, there are some basic actions you can take to leverage each to its full potential. GoogleMyBusiness, Yelp, and others can be difficult to navigate, especially if you’re not a regular user.
Let’s start with 7 basic steps to get traction. You never know who far you can go and these will get you on the right path.
Be Wherever Your Customers Look For You
Managing your online reputation is part marketing, part sales, and part public relations. In today’s online marketing environment, we have the ability to laser target those buyers who will most likely buy from us (instead of blanketing the land with meaningless messages like we used to). This undertaking may save us in advertising expense but the spend makes up for it in manpower.
You must identify where your customers spend their time. Metro areas have similarities to and differences from rural, less-populated areas. Knowing the characteristics of your target customers is vital to your business online reputation management process.
Recognize Your Reputation is Online – Whether You’re Participating or Not
There are conversations going on right now about your store. Denying that is dangerous. You need to participate in those conversations (or your competitor will). Start by observing how your customers talk about you. Develop an action plan to monitor things and then begin engaging in those conversations.
Take Advantage of Free Real Estate
Review sites’ business models are built on the premise that users will spend time there writing reviews, engaging their network and sharing other content. Review sites serve ads to users while they’re there.
For businesses, creating and maintaining a powerful profile that holds lots of good information and special offers is mostly free. Utilize the space by completing your profile including added photos and video. This gives people more insight into your business and a reason to buy from you.
Designate One Person to Monitor, Listen, Respond, and Recognize Opportunities
“Everybody’s job” can mean “No one’s job.” Don’t fall into the trap of assuming someone has your back. Assign one person to be the kingpin. Depending on the size of your business, you may want to create a team of managers to support the person you select.
Ensure Your Culture is Ready for Prime Time
A secure house is built on a strong foundation.
Today’s customer is connecting with brands they identify with. They’re looking for authenticity and transparency. If you promise one experience but deliver something else, trust begins to erode and you miss the chance for make them a customer.
Is your business culture ready for the spotlight?
Be Proactive About Asking for “Feedback”
Anyway you slice it, you’re leaving your business online reputation up to chance if you’re not proactively asking for opinions and feedback (aka: reviews).
Develop an action plan for obtaining the opinions of your happy, loyal customers:
- Email “love drip” requesting feedback from your current and repeat customers
- Incorporate scripts into your sales process
- Invite and gather customer testimonials
Respond to Every Review
Cars.com states that of their 800,000 dealership reviews, only 30% have been responded to. That means there’s a lot of room for improvement. There are specific tactics to take with different types of reviews: 1-2 stars, 3 stars and 4-5 stars. Each type requires a thoughtful, deliberate response.
I see many businesses not bothering to respond to ANY reviews they’ve received. This is like someone giving you a compliment and you walking away without saying anything. It’s like someone calling you out for a mistake and you cowering waiting for the storm to blow over.
Take the time to respond to every review.
Building, sustaining and improving a business online reputation is not difficult unless you choose to make it that way. Even if resources are in short supply, there are things you can do to mitigate catastrophes.
Set business online reputation goals for yourself and your staff. Keep the momentum going by tracking your results. You’d be surprised how great things will go once everyone’s engaged. The conversation is happening with or without you.
Question: What about a dealership that has a challenge in assigning one person – is it beneficial to “go outside” and hire a reputation management vendor to track and respond for the dealership. Is it sound to say doing something is better than doing nothing?
Hi there, I don’t advocate hiring a vendor to manage your reputation. First, no one watches your brand (and your money) like you do. Two, most of these vendors simply use monitoring tools to help you react. There needs to be an internal process to capture happy, loyal customers’ opinions. Designating one person and giving them some authority works the best. As far as “doing something” rather than “doing nothing”, that’s a hard one to hear. Isn’t your dealership (and all the hard work you’ve put in) worth more than that?