Date
Apr 06
Online reputation management is a critical aspect to any business that advertises online and has a website. Yet, for better or worse, even though you may not have a website, even though you may get all your business leads from traditional sources, the web has changed the landscape of your business without the common courtesy of letting you know.
Here are some facts to consider:
- Most people search online to find local products or services
- When deciding between competitors, the number of people looking online for what other people have said about your business is also increasing.
- New and “not so new” websites have cropped up that focus primarily on collecting reviews, ratings and comments for local businesses.
- These review sites know that they may not rank #1 for your business name, but they know they can have a significant impact, positively or negatively, on your business if they come in at #2 for your business name.
The effects of negative reviews on a business can be measurable. One business noticed their sales of high-end furniture dropped by 15% after a series of negative posts on a popular product review site started ranking #3 on Google.
When the business owner contacted me about this, she wondered how it could happen, if they could contact the website to see if they can take down the negative comment and even if they needed to bring their legal department in on the matter. After talking to her for about 15 minutes, I asked, “Is the comment accurate?” She paused and filled me in on the context.
The product that the customer was talking about had been discontinued 4 years earlier because of a particular design flaw that started causing problems after about a year. They’d recalled the products and in most cases, fixed them. However, as is always the case, they couldn’t fix all of them and this customer, rather than check for a recall, vented his frustration online.
While her first instincts were to try to remove the offending remarks from the internet, a futile endeavor, the tactic that we ended up using was to follow up with a strong social media campaign. We knew that people were still using the flawed product and there was a potential that even more negative comments would hurt even more sales.
We created a microsite that described the problems of the product, we released several press releases that told the community that they could either have their product fixed, or get a discount that goes toward the purchase of a new product. We contacted the poster through the site’s internal mail system and resolved his situation.
Before long, the first page on Google was controlled by our press releases about the issue, people saying that they appreciated the information and even the person who wrote the negative comment re-posted and said that the client had fixed the problem and exceeded his expectations.
The overall result was that after the 15% drop in sales, they made that drop up plus 10% as the increased media exposure and how they way they handled the situation got around.
Next on Ethical Search Engine Reputation Management, The Haters.
