Why Reputation Management is Vital for Small Businesses

Businesses have always had to worry about their reputation, especially small and medium sized businesses which  traditionally have been and still are more susceptible to the negative shadow that poor perception of their brand casts. Prior to the internet, reputation was spread via word-of-mouth marketing from a customer to his friends, family and co-workers. This would mean that if a customer had a negative experience, the information would be contained within a very small circle, allowing businesses a lot more time before needing to address complaints about their products or services. This also meant that if a customer had a positive experience, it would take a lot longer for the buzz to be spread within the community.

While word-of-mouth is still the currency used for reputation, in today’s digitally driven world where there are various outlets for information to be passed along about your business, word-of-mouth has a much greater reach, and therefore repercussions. Between large social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+, review sites like Yelp, Merchant Circle and Citysearch, and various niche directories, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to maintain a strong online presence as well as to maintain a good reputation.

There are many factors that play into why your reputation is important. Reputation is an intangible business asset that can make or break a business, large or small. If you are a small business with local competition, your reputation could be the only reason customers keep coming back to purchase from you. If your reputation gets tarnished you could stand to lose a good share of your business.

Still don’t believe me? Take a look at the following infographic from The SmartBiz Business Blog which shows that 70% of users place their trust in the opinions of strangers when it comes to review sites like Yelp or Citysearch:

Thankfully, there are a couple of steps that you can take to assist with monitoring and improving the reputation of your business. The more of these steps you take, the greater your ability to market your brand in the way you want it to be viewed, as well as to minimize any negative reviews or comments.

1) Customer Service Is Key

It takes only one unhappy customer who isn’t able to receive a response from you via phone, social media or e-mail. The majority of the time, it’s only when customers feel that they aren’t being heard or have no way to vent their frustrations that they go to forums and review sites to actively complain about your business.

At the very least, you should be providing a clear method for your customers to get a hold of you, as well as to let them know what hours your business can typically be reached and what the typical response time is to any complaints.

2) Set Up Notifications

As a small business, you’re probably already busy enough as it is without having to add the task of constantly monitoring what’s being said about you. Thankfully, you can let Google do the grunt work. Set up your Google alerts so that you receive online notifications to include the following:

• Your business or brand is mentioned
• Your URL
• Employee names

You’ll also want to go to the various directories that your business might be listed in and make sure to claim your profile. Once you claim your profile, typically with the big review sites (Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Business, etc.), you’ll be allowed to set up e-mail notifications any time someone reviews your business.

3) Get Social

A great way to increase your reputation and popularity is to create accounts on social media sites and then to be active and interact with your customers. By getting involved in social media, you have a chance of utilizing the invaluable resources of your followers – the ability of inexpensive and immediate online marketing!

(image credit: Social Media Examiner)

Aside from the possibility of getting your customers to spread your brand’s message to other people, by being active on social media, you’ll be able to monitor what’s being said about your business, that way if anything negative is being mentioned, you’ll have the opportunity to address it before it snowballs into a problem.  On the other hand, people are praising your brand, you’ll be able to share the messages, which will increase the strength of your brands reputation. You can use socialmention.com to get a good idea of what’s being said about your business.

4) Ask Customers For Reviews

This does not mean paying for a review! Nor does it mean asking a customer to leave a positive review!

If you’re following the above steps, you should have a pretty good idea of whether people view your business favorably or not. If you’re the type of business that cares about providing good customer service, then you shouldn’t have any fear of asking for a review.

You can ask a customer nicely at the end of a transaction or hand them a card that reminds them to go online to leave a review of their experience.

Monitoring your online business reputation is essential to survival in this technological age, especially when you consider how many people are online using social media and checking review sites via a computer, smartphone, tablet or other internet connected device before making a purchase.

Staying on top of what’s being said about your brand and being active on social media sites will allow you to build your business’ online reputation, letting you stay a step above your competitors.

Whichever approach or combination of management processes you decide to use, monitoring your reputation and ensuring that it’s on the positive spectrum is something that you just simply cannot ignore.