Corporate reputation management is quite crucial for every company in every industry regardless of size or financial status.
Unless you are providing services to yourself, corporate reputation management is something that should be at the top of your priority. People will always have an impression of your company, whether good or bad is totally up to you.
Your corporate reputation – as solid as it may be – is really fragile. It could take you twenty years to build it up and just five minutes to tear it down, according to Warren Buffet.
These days, a great deal – if not all – of consumers make purchase decision based on a brand’s corporate reputation. What this means is that if you have got a poor corporate reputation due to ineffective reputation management, you may find it difficult to achieve your brand objectives.
You may even begin to lose your current customers to your competition who has a better corporate reputation.
And that’s not all…
Having a bad corporate reputation could negatively impact your company’s revenue and market value, as well as your ability to recruit and retain unique talents.
Now you know how terrible it is for you to have a poor corporate reputation, what are you going to do about it?
Lucky for you, we have got a few good ideas…
Excellent corporate reputation management involves a set of strategies used together with the sole aim of shaping or conditioning how your customers perceive your brand.
This could involve some PR efforts, media relations, and distribution of press releases, as well as social media listening and management, search engine optimization (SEO), employer branding, reputation marketing, and customer experience management.
All those parts will be weaved into a single, solid strategy that will be used to improve and strengthen your corporate reputation.
And so, without further ado, let’s look at the 6 keys to a successful corporate reputation management.
- Keep Your Corporate Ears Open
It’s easy to lose yourself in the everyday rigors of running your company and trying to make sales that you forget to listen to what consumers are saying about your brand.
You cannot have a positive corporate reputation if consumers think poorly of you. The metric for measuring how your customers perceive you is what they say about you.
For this reason you need to take your customer feedback seriously. When a customer takes out time to write a review, you should understand he/she is serious about what is written. In your customer reviews lie the secret to what your customers are looking for.
It also gives you a good idea of what they think of your brand.
Therefore, you should invest more time and effort in managing and analysing your customer reviews. This extends to social media comments/posts, survey responses, customer phone calls & emails, call centre notes, and other sources of customer opinions.
Your task is to collect, analyse, and make sense of customer review data. This way you can get a sense of what they want and how they feel about your brand.
- Build Your Employer Brand
Want to build a successful company? You need to work with the right set of hands and talent. But that’s not going to happen if you have got a bad employer brand reputation.
Glassdoor, a popular employee review site, has reported that a whopping 69% of people would rather be unemployed than accept an employment offer from a company with bad employer branding.
To build a better employer brand, you need to understand what your brand’s value proposition is, listen to your employees and take note of their concerns, and building a culture that promotes shared values.
- Participate In Community Outreaches
Want people to see you as good? Do good deeds. Simple.
Be concerned with the concerns of your consumers and the community they live in and they rally to you. This may take the form of disaster relief efforts, save the environment programs, charity events, and other ways you can reach out to the community around you and your customers.
Basically, this means being a good corporate citizen and a concerned member of the community.
Just in case you are tempted to skip this part, remember this – 9 out of 10 citizens say that they will not do business with a company involved in shady or irresponsible acts, according to Cone Communication.
In the same vein, Harvard law research has reported that community outreach efforts can add so much value that will lead to increased customer loyalty, lower reputational risks, and increased customers’ willingness to spend more doing business with you.
- Have A Backup Plan In Times Of Crisis
There are more than enough instances where a poorly managed customer issue turned out to be a nightmare for a company. You don’t want to find yourself in that situation, nobody does.
You must put preventive measures in place to mitigate or guard against instances where a customer review, tweet, comment, post, or blog content turns out to be bad news for your reputation.
These measures could include building a relationship with media outfits, resolving serious customer issues before they hit the public, preventing such issues from reaching public ears, and seek the help of your legal and PR team before you put out any external communications.
Doing these things should keep you safe in the event of a PR nightmare.
- Consider Using The Services Of A Corporate Reputation Management Company
If you have been making a lot of effort in your business and the results aren’t matching your efforts, you may need to evaluate your corporate reputation.
This is especially crucial if you notice the following signs:
- Your conversion metrics show poor performance.
- You have more people saying bad things about your brand than good.
- Negative online reviews.
- Customer opinions about your brand are growing into a negative trend.
These signs say one thing – it’s time to get some help. You may not be able to run your company and manage your corporate reputation. Therefore, you should call in the cavalry to get some help.
Find a company that manages corporate reputation and let them bear the headaches of maintaining a positive reputation for your business.
- Pay Attention To Your Customers’ Experience
Customers aren’t just looking for products or services to pay for; they are also seeking a great experience along with it. Give them both and you have got yourself a good name.
I can boldly say this is the easiest way to build positive corporate reputation. Customers associate a delightful experience with good reputation and will be willing to point their friends and family in your direction.
Conversely, customers associate a bad experience with poor reputation. In other words, a bad experience equals a poor corporate reputation. This will ultimately lead to loss of potential customers as disgruntled customers will ask people to stay away from your business.
And you don’t want that, do you?
Do well to listen to your customers in their reviews. They may point out a flaw in your customer service. Or proffer a solution to what they didn’t like about doing business with you.
Another thing is how your business is designed. It is important to understand that companies that are more customer-centric are known to have to positive reputation amongst consumers. Design your business to always put your customers first. Your reputation will thank you for it.
One of those delightful experiences you can provide your customer is free guest Wi-Fi. Consumers will easily prefer a business that gives them internet connection for free over one that doesn’t.
One thing about offering Wi-Fi is that it is a win-win. Your customers get to enjoy internet connectivity while you get the opportunity to learn more about your customers.
How?
Because – using a Wi-Fi landing page – you can collect valuable customer information which will help you communicate better with your customers.
Want to learn more? Contact us and we will show you how you can improve your marketing with Wi-Fi.
POSTED ON October 18, 2019
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