Every so often on social media, a story will start trending that follows this basic narrative: Patron doesn’t tip their waiter, waiter snaps a photo of the blank tip line and posts it online and people console the person for having to deal with such a callous and ungenerous person or group. It’s an understandable reaction to a disappointing night at work, but I would guess that the disappointed waiter isn’t thinking about the potential impact their actions might have on their employer’s digital reputation.
In a world where your digital persona is paramount, doing something individually can have a much wider impact. Protecting the digital reputation of your business is extremely important in today’s world – it’s important for business owners to learn to recognize personal behavior can also drastically impact a brand.
71% of customers say online reviews make them more comfortable purchasing a product or service. For your business, the individual behavior of one employee can lead to a massive upheaval with your brand’s digital reputation.
There are steps every business owner can take to protect their online reputation. Ensuring all your online listings are updated and accurate is a great first step and has far reaching benefits to your online and search presence. Next, subscribing to new review alerts will help you take action immediately when a new review pops up. Look—not everyone is going to have a 5 star experience with your business, every time. Recognizing reviews where customers may have visited your business when not at its best is critical—then do what you can to rectify the experience with the client and respond, professionally (aka without emotion)! Finally, encouraging new (and existing) customers to write reviews and promoting positive reviews is a great way to further your digital persona. Who doesn’t like to read good news about their business? Let your customers be your online megaphone!
Proactively taking control and managing your online reputation can not only maintain current business – it can also help you grow new business through a strategic, integrated approach. Find out what your customers are saying about your brand by signing up for an analysis with a team of professionals today.