Managing Your Brand Online – Balancing Your Company Voice and Customer Service
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, online brand reputation is everything in today’s world. While a few years ago, brand reputation and PR was something the likes of only big businesses had to worry about, it is no longer the case.
Before, if a customer was not happy with your service or product, they would stop buying from you. And that was the end of that. Their perception of your business did not impact the business at all.
But people now are more vocal about their experiences online. They are much more active in expressing their opinions about brands and services on different platforms. And in a world more connected than ever, word spreads fast.
As a business, you have little control over what is said about you on the many different digital platforms. However, you can control how you address that feedback and how your future services can be designed based on that criticism.
With over 70 percent of consumers starting their customer journey on Google’s search engine, your company simply cannot ignore the importance of its online presence.
In this article, we are going to have a look at how you can manage your company’s online voice and messaging to improve your business's bottom line.
What is Online Reputation Management (ORM)?
Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a concept that is geared towards making a positive public image and perception of a brand or business. It is a way of crafting the right strategies that shape your company's online branding and influences the public perception of your organization on the Internet - in a good way.
It helps drive public opinions and reviews about businesses and the services and products they provide.
ORM includes tracking your business’s insights, monitoring its reputation across the Internet, addressing customer feedback and criticism that could hurt the brand’s image, and formulate a plan of action to prevent and solve these issues in the future.
Reputation management will help you ensure that your business is properly represented on the web so that people are left with a positive impression of your business and what it stands for.
How to Manage Your Brand Online
1. Use the Right Customer Review Channels
Customer reviews can be the most impactful step in managing your business's online reputation. They provide higher search engine rankings, better clickthrough rates, and attract more potential customers to your business.
Which is why you need to use the right review platforms depending on the type of business you have.
Different Types of Review Platforms
There are many different types of review platforms out there. Finding the right one for your business is key. Let’s start by looking at some of the most popular online review sites and go from there.
The Most Popular Review Platforms
Google Reviews
Reviews on Google can provide businesses with a great credibility boost. It is a reliable place to receive reviews and helps bring small businesses to the spotlight by providing them with a level playing field.
Google reviews are great because, generally, marketing hype and creative ad campaigns take a backseat and real reviews come at the forefront.
They also provide businesses with the benefit of local SEO. Which means that your local mom and pop operations don't have to fork out tons of money on expensive SEO strategies to rank better.
Along with being the biggest social networking site on the internet, Facebook is one of the most popular review platforms, too. The website has over 2.7 billion users and that number alone gives your business a huge advantage in terms of visibility.
Facebook offers a lot in terms of versatility as not only can people read and write reviews but they can also interact with other reviewers.
Yelp
Over the years, Yelp has built itself a strong reputation. It started out as a restaurant-centric review platform but quickly branched out into most other industries. Since its website boasts millions of users, Yelp is a great choice for you to manage your online reputation and keep track of what is being said about your brand on the internet.
Industry-Specific Review Sites
The benefits of receiving positive online reviews are many. But they get even more when you make use of review platforms that are specific to your niche. Here are a few good-quality industry-specific review sites to boost your business’s online reputation:
Social Media Websites for Reviews
Almost 70 percent of users will go straight to a business’s social media profile to know more about it and read their reviews.
To manage your business online and balance your company’s online voice, you need to ensure an active presence on social media platforms.
Having reviews on social media platforms gives your business a sense of genuineness and lets people know that your business provides a real product or service. It instantly creates trust and authenticity for your business.
Visitors cannot ensure that you are selling a genuine service if you have no social media profile or reviews. Make sure you have business profiles on at least some of the most popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
2. Ask for Positive Feedback
The best way to encourage your customers to leave reviews is by simply asking them to do so. More often than not, you will find that customers are happy to leave you a nice comment about their experience with your business, especially if that experience has been positive.
Here are a few ways you can encourage customers to leave reviews:
Include a call-to-action (CTA) wherever possible asking the customer to leave a review. That includes on your customer invoice or your business website.
Create an automated email campaign that sends out an email to every customer once they use your services. This allows you to provide prompt customer service. Zapier is a great automation tool for this purpose.
Or simply, ask. If you don’t mind going the traditional route, just verbally ask your customers what they thought of your services and if they would be willing to write a review for your business.
Having a customer vouch for you can go a long way in managing your brand online. Don’t be afraid to request a 5-star review or positive feedback from satisfied customers. Encourage people to talk about your business’s work ethic, transparency, expertise, and customer service. Put client testimonials on your website’s landing page. This way, people who come across your website/social profiles are more likely to trust your business.
3. Always Respond
You cannot have a great online presence if you don’t double down your customer service efforts. And one of the best ways to do that is by responding to your customers – no matter what.
Respond to people asking questions about your brand across all social media and review platforms. If you come across critical or negative feedback regarding your services, respond in a way that lets the customer know that you care about their needs.
If there is a mistake on your end, don’t be afraid to take ownership of it and be transparent about the truth. Examine how you can learn from the criticism and address your shortcomings internally to improve your customer experience for the future.
4. Be Proactive and Answer FAQs
Recognize the questions customers regularly have and provide self-service customer support for those questions. Use your website and other customer service channels to create FAQs, how-to videos, and blog posts to help customers get the best out of their experience with your business.
These self-service information resources provide support to your customers even when your support team is not available.
5. Engage with Your Audience on Social Media
Nowadays, people often prefer posting their complaints about a brand on social media platforms.
Use social listening to monitor social media platforms and see where your audience spends the most time talking about your business. Be prompt and effective in your response to your customers on social media. Find the right tone and reply to all customer comments and queries about your brand.
Make your brand relatable. Show your audiences that real people are working behind the scenes by sharing your staff’s day-to-day experiences or any special office celebrations. Ensure to always create posts wishing your customers well during the holidays or on other special occasions. Let your brand personality shine through in your posts while still promoting your services.
Adding a personal touch humanizes your business. It lets people realize that there is a person on the other side and that there is a dedicated team of humans that helps make everything happen.
6. Serve Your Customers Well
At the end of the day, whether it is offline or online, the best way to improve your reputation is to serve your customers well.
There is nothing more effective in managing your business’s image than by providing your customer with a top-notch experience that genuinely pleases them. No amount of online brand management and marketing strategies can beat good customer experience.
As a business, your first focus should be on solving a problem for your customers and providing them with the best you have got. Once you have provided your best service to a customer, you can then employ other customer support strategies to further your online branding efforts.
Final Thoughts
Managing your brand online is a concern that most businesses have to deal with nowadays. Using the right tools and strategies in this endeavor can make or break companies and their bottom lines.