A Harris poll this month revealed that 78% of people search for information about a person or business before deciding whether or not to contact them. Disturbingly 74% of people admitted they would refuse to do business with someone or a business if they discovered any negative web pages on them.
This has massive repercusions for people who own businesses on the Internet. That half naked photo uploaded to Facebook or that private tweet sent to a friend could be made public at any time!
A US restaurant chain called Chipotle recently hit the headlines with an online reputation incident that rocked the world. Their facebook account was allegedly hacked making it look like an employee posted a message saying they ran over a cat on they way home from work. People went crazy about it and it could have easily led to a sudden loss of sales - a nightmare for any business.
James Winsoar, Director of Nottingham based search engine optimisation company JW Enterprises said, "If you searched for your business name online what results would you see? Many people would find negative comments about their business added by unhappy customers or aggreived employees onto internet review sites like Google Places, Yelp and Tipped".
"The good news is that businesses can do something about it. There is the legal route which can be taken if there are slanderous comments but it can be expensive to employ a law firm. A more sensible way is to launch blogs, social media accounts, and a forum where people can get their questions answered. Distribute articles, videos and press releases that describe you or your company in a good way".
Many customer complaints can be resolved by encouraging communication. The main complaint from genuinely unhappy customers is that they are not being listened to. Thankfully this can be resolved in exactly the same way that the negative comments can be pushed further down the search results and onto page two or three where people will be less likely to read them.
It is well worth the short time investment needed to manage the accounts, perhaps an hour a day spent wisely posting useful information and answering customer enquiries. Facebook can be linked to Twitter to make sharing news with customers more automated, and likewise your Twitter posts can be synchronised to Facebook. Many businesses are finding that use of Twitter for customer service is great for building up trust and managing their online reputation.
There are some techniques you should steer clear of - for example reposting multiple testimonials onto review sites. Anti-spam measures are in place on all the top review sites. Review sites expect real customers to post reviews from different computers and at different locations. Having clients share good reviews about you is an almost guaranteed route to achieving higher rankings and a better online reputation.
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