How others perceive your business is the key to a good business reputation. A customer will only buy from your company if they feel they can trust it. With the influence of social media and online customer reviews – people’s opinions have the power to both damage and enhance your business. To put it simply, reputation determines revenue. Researchers discovered that roughly 40% of marketing performance is influenced by business reputation. Other research demonstrated that one single bad review can decrease customer leads by 22%.
Therefore your business’s reputation must be positive if you want to see success, so with that in mind, we suggest you keep scrolling and read these tips on how to achieve a good reputation for your business.
Don’t be afraid to stand with authority
Other people should not define your business. Period. That is why taking control is important. You need to put yourself out there and let people know you are here to stay. People are more inclined to do business with organizations that they think are experts in the field. They want to buy from the best and if you aren’t the best they will go elsewhere.
A few ways to establish your authority is to answer customer queries, make blog posts about the industry, host workshops or webinars, start a podcast or join a podcast. These methods work because they show the customer that you have the right knowledge and thus are an expert in the industry.
Keep track of social media
If customers are talking about you online, you’ll want to know exactly what they are saying. Keeping tabs on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter is a sure way to get an idea of what customers think about you. Not addressing comments from unsatisfied customers asap can make matters worse – they may make an entire Facebook post about how poor your customer service is (and this could be seen by hundreds or potentially thousands of users). Read more on how to enable your business to thrive online.
Look at review sites
Browsing review sites will give you a rough idea of your customers' experience with you. Often, customers distance themselves from you if they’ve had a bad experience and jump straight to popular review sites like Yelp rather than taking the matter up with your customer service team. Responding to reviews on sites like these is critical if you want to one, effectively resolve the matter and two, show other customers that you care about resolving the matter. This shows future customers that you are a customer-orientated service.
Improve your website
Poor grammar and bad site navigation scream unprofessionalism. Your site should give a clear rundown of who you are, what you stand for, what you offer, and why your service should be chosen (see Instarmac as an example). A good website equals a happy customer.
To summarize
Truth be known, you can’t satisfy everyone. At the end of the day, all businesses get unhappy customers from time to time. You should focus on keeping happy customers happy rather than fussing over people who are not easily impressed or who have unnaturally high standards.