The rise of digital and mobile has completely shifted the online reputation management landscape. With the proliferation of social media and online review sites, the consumer voice is amplified more than ever before. It is important for businesses to invest in reputation monitoring and customer service because one bad review, whether you’re a national or local brand, can have a significant ripple effect on consumer perception.
Online reputation management is the process of influencing a company or an individual’s reputation by controlling both positive and negative information found online. It includes improving a business’ online perception by suppressing or eliminating negative comments – whether it be an online review on sites like Yelp, Google, or SiteJabber, or on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook.
With 81% of shoppers conducting online research before heading to a store, it’s clear that consumers are going online to vet local businesses before making a purchase decision. On top of this, the majority of shoppers now have their smartphones on them at all times and research indicates that 46% of all shopping journeys contain a mobile search. Businesses that lack online reputation management are at risk of losing business to competitors who monitor and manage what is being said about them online.
Online reviews, especially positive ones, can also help your business with local SEO. These reviews can help increase your business’s local rankings on search engines and help your business show up higher in the search results. By extension, positive reviews leading to high search result ranking increases the number of clicks your business will get, which will ultimately lead to more foot traffic.
Worldwide, $500 billion is spent per year on marketing, but only $9 billion is spent on customer service. This large gap exists even though just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits 25-90%. Customer retention and advocacy begins with online reputation management and responding to everything that is being said about your business online. According to marketing and customer service expert, Jay Baer, one-third of customer complaints are never answered and most of these take place online. “No answer is in fact, an answer,” says Jay, “it’s answer that says we don’t care about you or your feedback at all.” Knowing this, it’s important for companies to be privy to what is being said about them online and to be sure to respond to each and every review or message so that their reputation remains intact.
Building a positive online reputation may sound like a lot of work, but every business should concentrate on a few impactful things to start:
- Claim and manage your local listings, as well as profiles on review sites and social media.
- Start monitoring your online reputation by looking at review sites and social media.
- Reply to all reviews (both positive and negative) as well as complaints and questions on social media.
- Ask your loyal customers to leave positive reviews for your business on sites like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
- Collect positive reviews and post them to high traffic sites.
If you aren’t managing your business listings while monitoring and managing what is being said about your brand online, you are at great risk of suffering the negative effects of a bad online reputation. Lack of exposure, negative reviews, and conflicting or old business name, address and phone number information online hurt your business.