The simple truth is that businesses live and die by their reputations. In years past, word of mouth was the primary vehicle for circulating a company’s reputation, good or bad. But with technology today, you have practically a zillion more ways to get the word out about your business. While the Internet makes it easier for you to spread the word about your business, it also has a downside: unhappy customers can put negative information about your company all over the web. As you can imagine, this can have a severe impact on your reputation. That’s why it’s so important to manage what info about your business shows up in the search engines!
Fight Back Against Reputation Killers Online
To find out what’s out there about your business, you’ve got to think like a consumer: Start by searching for your company name in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, or Bing and see what comes up. If you see hits from RipOffReport.com or customer complaint forums, your reputation may already be in some hot water!
However, it’s not the end of the world. A reactive campaign can help you recover your good reputation online. The first step is to correct any inaccurate information about your company that might be floating around online. Reports on Google Reviews or RipOffReport might be inaccurate or incomplete, and these outlets enable you to address those issues. The second step is to promote positive information about your company online. By launching new and positive info in media like articles, press releases, and more, you can share what your company is really about with the online community. And by putting all that new, positive information out there, you can push the negative media farther down in the search results. The ultimate result will be no more nasty comments from unhappy customers showing up on page one of the Google results.
Be Proactive
Even if nothing bad about your business comes up when you search, you may want to start a proactive reputation management campaign. Focusing on getting the word out about the positive aspects of your company, a proactive campaign can promote your business in a positive way—before any negative stuff gets a chance to circulate. When people search for your company online, all they’ll see is fabulous reviews, stellar articles, etc.
Reputation Management Services
If your company finds itself in need of either a reactive or proactive campaign, Prospect Genius is available to help. We offer both services for our customers as well as an ongoing monitoring option that keeps tabs on your online reputation and lets you know if any negativity about your company does crop up.
The Inside Scoop
Keeping track of what’s going on inside your business is just as important as monitoring your online information when it comes to managing your reputation. Whether you’d like to monitor who is authorizing coupons or ensure that the office staff is answering the phone in the prescribed way, call recording can help monitor your staff’s interactions with customers. By recording and listening to all the calls that come into your office, you can make certain your clients are getting only the best possible customer service. Even easier, why not get those call recordings transferred into a text version for fast, simple review.
Prospect Genius has partnered up with the telecommunications company Bluestone for various projects in the past, and their newest product offering will be to convert audio recordings into text. Initially developed for car dealerships to monitor their sales representatives, Bluestone’s product enables you to record phone conversations and then convert the recordings into text for your convenience. This innovative product will even highlight the keywords business owners are looking for, which can enable you to easily track the types of deals your sales reps are closing and the various promises that are made.
This call recording-to-text feature will be available from Bluestone in the second quarter of 2011. A valuable option for your business if you have staff that answers the phone and communicates with customers, this is a simple, straightforward way to control how your customers are treated. For additional information, contact Bluestone at 518-690-0391 or by e-mail at jeffrobinson@bluestonetel.com. There’s also more information available on their website, http://bluestonetel.com.
