The Huge ROI Of Reputation Management

Maintaining a strong reputation online are some of the most important optics for getting new customers. Advertising can be argued as the most important consideration for attracting a base but without good reviews the two are almost in lock step.

No matter the industry or size, perception of a business is key. In fact, your online reputation can be a great way to demonstrate your company's commitment to strong NPS scores and stand apart from your competition who is standing by ready to be canceled.

The best way to earn a great offline and online reputation is to deserve one, which simply means that you are always doing your best to provide outstanding products and/or services with excellent customer service.

As Jeff Bezos repeatedly said, customer obsession and focusing on their wants and needs is how you succeed. This earned Amazon a world class reputation from it’s consumers and helped it to grow into the behemoth that it is today.

Whether you’re interested in acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones, or expanding your company like Amazon did, investing in your consumers and continuously improving your company’s reputation helps you understand what people are saying about you and how to use that info to your advantage.

Improving your relationships with your customers on a dynamic basis. “the end Goal of any reputation management program is to measure what your clients like, what they dislike, analyze the data, and work to improve both perception and any issues that would cause a customer to not come back.” These comments resonate with some of the largest silicon slopes and silicon valley tech companies who focus on not just having an amazing product but also ensuring customer satisfaction.

There are a ton of metrics that can be used to evaluate the efficacy of a reputation management program, but the most important one is the hardest to quantify: building a relationship with your customer. An effective reputation management program is all about proving to customers that you deserve their business. There are no shortcuts.

That said, empirical data can be used to prove the value of investing in an ORM program. It costs more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one, and satisfied customers lead to less churn. Companies like Qualtrics provide survey management to measure customer satisfaction where another Salt Lake City, Utah giant The Reputation Management Company provides the services to help change Google autocomplete suggestions to get rid of unwanted words like complaints, scam, lawsuit, or a former CEO who’s no longer with the company as well as services to manage and repair negative search results.

Your loyal customer base will also write positive reviews and recommend you to family and friends, allowing you to find new customers without paying for them. The return on investment really starts to add up when you deliver quality service and an excellent product. Again look at Amazon and what they’ve built on this foundation.

What are the costs of a reputation management program?

Business owners don't have unlimited resources, so it's important to understand precisely what you're getting yourself into before launching any new initiatives. You need to be prepared to invest in the following areas of your business to make the most of a reputation management program:

1. A social tracking tool or staff hired to monitor online reviews. Tools like Hootsuite can handle this as well as “Mention”.
2. The resources required to address customer concerns. There’s an increased cost in improving customer experience and as anybody who flew on Spirit Airlines and won’t ever again this should be obvious.
3. Tools and training to empower your employees to become more efficient.

Remember that skimping on your customer service carries the opportunity cost of an incomplete understanding of what your customers want, need, and expect from you. If your competitors have those insights, how can you possibly compete?

The actual dollar cost is variable according to the scale of your company and what resources you may already have in place. It is best to figure out exactly what you will pay to help you calculate an ROI for your program.

Offline indicators will light up before online indicators do. A client has a bad experience and it happens in real time. The next thing they do is rush online where they begin a reputation attack initiative, but many of the most important key performance indicators (or KPIs) aren't online they start offline so it’s important to fix issues before they lead to online complaints.

For example, customer feedback surveys can be a great way to get shy customers to tell you how they really feel about their experience with you. Likewise, your estimated market share and the frequency with which current customers refer others to your business can be very telling. Looking at your organization's CLV (or Customer Lifetime Value) is a great way to translate your reputation into financial terms that business owners can grasp.

You should jot down your current performance in each of these areas to use as a baseline when evaluating your reputation repair program's performance. For instance, if customers are 20 percent more likely to refer you to others after you launch your program, that's one way to measure your ROI of having a good reputation management program.

How to Approach Social Media
Social media provides a tremendous opportunity for customers to engage with the brands they love, and it's happening even if you're not paying attention. That said, social media doesn't generally drive conversions, so an effective campaign won't lead to immediate sales. Instead, you're looking for insight into how your brand is perceived and how to address any shortcomings that are preventing you from reaching your brand's full potential.

Providing customer service and responses through mediums like Twitter are great ways to show customers that you care. United Airlines personifies this perfectly according to reputation expert Rich Ruddie who says they answer Tweets from clients, respond to direct messages, and display on their profile how they’re here for you 24/7.

There are four KPIs that you should make note of before you begin your campaign:

1. Star Ratings - Star ratings don't tell you everything you need to know, but they provide a lot of information at a glance. There is no standardized system for what constitutes a five-star review, so it's important to ask yourself why a given customer rated you the way they did. We recommend setting a realistic goal for where you want your ratings to be one year after you begin your reputation management campaign and going from there.

2. Customer Complaints - Negative reviews are inevitable, but they can also provide you with valuable information. If you find that customers are consistently complaining about a specific element of your business, you know where you need to improve. If people are still complaining about that area after you've fixed it, you probably haven't addressed the real issue. If your former weakness is cited as a strength, you've successfully rectified the problem.

This can be an extremely time-consuming process if handled manually, so you might want to invest in a software product with natural language processing capabilities to speed things up. Zendesk is also a great way to monitor customer inquiries.

You also shouldn't respond to negative feedback unless you understand what you're doing, as the wrong approach can make the situation far worse.

3. Followers - Dissatisfied customers generally don't go out of their way to engage with a brand they don't like, so your company's follower count can be used as a measure of positive sentiment toward your business. Note that you lose this information if you purchase followers like some social media experts recommend, so we would encourage you to avoid doing so and staying white hat and not going black hat with your social media marketing efforts.

4. Positive Engagement - Finally, how often your customers retweet, repost, or comment can be seen as a measure of how well you are inspiring your base to engage with your brand. Note that this is different from strictly engagement metrics, though you can effectively track it with basic social media APIs.

Making the Most of Aggregate Review Sites - Social media is one of the most common places where consumers interact with businesses, but it's not the only place. Aggregate review sites such as Google and Yelp! are also valuable points of contact.

There are three KPIs to consider:

1. Star Reviews - These work very similarly to social media star reviews and can be approached in the same manner. We recommend aiming for at least a half-star improvement in your first year because it is an attainable goal for most businesses as long as you are focused on continuous improvement.

2. Customer Sentiment - This KPI is comparable to the social media complaints discussed above. Try to identify one or two specific areas of need for your employees to focus on for a year or so. The areas you choose should also be a primary consideration during your employee onboarding procedures. If you do a good job training and hiring the right people it will save you more in the long run.

3. SEO Performance - Many business owners don't associate search engine optimization (or SEO) with reputation management, but online reviews are a big part of what the algorithms are looking at. For example, Google uses Google My Business star ratings and business sentiment to help determine search results whenever it performs a local search. If your rating is subpar, your site won't be a priority and prospective customers won't be aware you exist.

The best way to test your current performance is to use Google Chrome's Incognito tab to get organic search results for key terms that aren't influenced by your prior browsing history. If your competitors are outperforming you, try to figure out what they are doing better and implement it yourself.

Reputation repair may not be easy, but is absolutely worth the investment in the long run. The ROI get better as you continue to invest in it.

-Richart Ruddie