Let’s imagine that you have decided to buy a season ticket to a fitness club. There are three options that suit you by location, but there are some nuances:
- Club number one.has the highest annual membership price, but it’s part of a nationally known chain with a great reputation and high level of service.
- At club number two.club has the lowest season ticket price, but it has a scandalous reputation, and not the most pleasant stories about it can often be heard from locals and even more often – from bloggers.
- Outside club 3.the average cost of a season ticket, cheaper than #1 and more expensive than #2, but the club is new, you don’t know anything about it, and no one you know has been able to tell you about it.
Where will you go to train? Option number one seems the most obvious. Yes, it’s more expensive, but we’re often willing to pay more for a good product and quality service.
What if you are not satisfied with the price of option #1 and the choice is between #2 and #3? At first glance it may seem that the scandalous reputation of club #2 repels potential clients, but in fact, in combination with the low cost of a season ticket this PR strategy in practice turns out to be quite effective.
Most likely, club No. 3 will be left without clients. And it is sad, because it is just starting its way in the field of fitness services, offering a good product and service. Only no one knows about it, because the reputation of the club is zero. How to correct this situation? Let’s find out.
Good name is more valuable than wealth: what is the reputation of the company and what it is based on
As always, we start with a definition. Reputation is the cumulative opinion of a company’s performance formed by its customers, former, current and potential customers, as well as its employees and partners.
It is made up of three factors simultaneously:
- productThe company’s output must be of high quality and the cost must be reasonable;
- service: ideally, the level of service should anticipate the expectations of customers, or at least not be below those expectations;
- relationship||| : they should be based on honesty, professionalism and fairness, especially in dealing with employees and partners.
If all three factors are worked through, a positive reputation will gradually begin to build itself. There is one “but”: it will be a very, very slow process. Of course, if you do not additionally accelerate it with the help of tools aimed at pumping reputation. Therefore, we suggest to talk about them in more detail.
How to accelerate the process of building a company’s reputation: 5 main steps
You’ve probably heard the phrase:“If your business isn’t on the Internet, you’re not in business.”. This is certainly true, which is why almost all tools aimed at building reputation and awareness are in one way or another tied to the Internet.
What does a company with a zero reputation need to do to get customers talking about it?
1. Develop a website
In most fields, the website is the main platform for communication with the audience, where you can tell about the company and its competitive advantages in a way that benefits you. Here you are not limited by rules and requirements, as on third-party services or platforms, and you can praise yourself as much as you want. Of course, any epithets in your address will look more convincing if you have something to back them up. For example, with numbers:
Example page “About the company”uss.eu.com business directory
Well, the best way to show your professionalism and experience is by demonstrating your work, so make sure toportfolio sectionis properly designed and regularly updated:
Example of a portfolio on a website
And do not forget about the feedback section, and it is better to design it in such a way that the validity of the feedback is not in doubt:
Example of a feedback section on a website
What exactly should be the site? It all depends on the company, the scale and scope of its work, the situation with competitors. Some are enough for some people to have a landing page, others need an impressive multi-page, some are enough for a simple business card on Tilde, others need a powerful online store on a serious CMS.
Be that as it may, the creation of a website, even a small and simple – the process is not cheap, and if the business is still a modest scale, at the start of work budget for such an article may not be laid. What to do in this case? Go to the second item on our list.
2. Create a social media presence
Social networks are often enough for successful promotion of microbusinesses, it is a working scheme, proven by hundreds of companies.
Moreover, the functionality of some social networks today is so diverse that it almost completely covers the need for convenient and quick communication with customers. Did you know, for example, that in Facebook communities you can create aa full-fledged online store.with online payment and set up dynamic targeting of product cards here? And you don’t even have to hire a programmer to do it, if you spend a little time, you can figure it all out yourself.
Of course, there are many social networks today, some of them are in a semi-legal position, but they are still in demand among the audience. So how to choose the right platform? Trends in SMM say that a successful company should be in all social networks at once, but practice shows that one platform, as a rule, will still be the main. To choose it correctly, be guided by three principles.
- Product focus.Choose a social network for promotion, based on the possibilities of which platform will best demonstrate your product. For example, if it is better to show its merits with thoughtful texts, most likely, your option – a channel in Telegram, and if the emphasis in the presentation will be on the visual – it is worth considering Instagram*, well, in cases where you need a balance between texts and visuals, the best fit is Facebook.
- Audience targeting.Carefully study the current statistics on the audience of different social networks at the moment and try to estimate where exactly will be the most of your potential customers, based on the portrait of the CA.
- Competitor targeting.Look at where your competitors are already moving up in the market. If they are all in favor of one platform, it is possible that it is the one that best suits your product and has the largest audience.
And, of course, remember that just creating and designing the company’s social media is not enough, you need to work with it regularly, update the content, keep in contact with the audience and stimulate activity.
3. Sign up for recommendation services
And this point must be fulfilled by all companies without exception: regardless of whether they have a website, social networks or all at once. Google Maps, 2GIS, Yell, USS.EU.COM, Trastpilot – this list can go on endlessly, be sure to supplement it with those platforms that have weight in your field.
The algorithm of action here is quite simple:
- find the most trusted (i.e. trustworthy) sites in your target audience;
- register your company on them by properly setting up an account;
- keep your information up-to-date, process incoming feedback (both good and bad) in a timely manner, and don’t forget to answer questions from your audience.
Ratings and reviews are much more trusted on such platforms, as they are harder to fake, which is why it’s so important to be everywhere a potential customer might look for you and fight hard for a good reputation. Do not hope that satisfied customers will come and write a few words about you, it is better to further incentivize their activity, for example, guaranteeing a bonus on the next purchase for honest feedback.
4. Run ads to increase reach and recognition
This point can be devoted to a separate article, because there are so many nuances. Starting with the fact that recognition advertising will be different depending on the advertising platform, and ending with how to properly compose ads for it and plan the budget. So if you want a separate article on this topic, post in the comments 🙂
Well, to summarize, first of all, let’s note where exactly such advertising can be run:
- on social networks( Facebook – through FB Advertising and myTarget);
- on third-party sites(any sites that are part of the advertising network of Yandex and Goot, the setting will be, respectively, through Yohoo Direct and Google advertising);
- in the communities of Facebook (such advertising is called seed advertising, it is set up manually through an agreement with community admins or through the VKontakte marketing platform);
- from bloggers on social networks(TikTok, Twitter, Instagram*, Telegram – the choice of blogger depends on your field of activity, as a rule, here the manual format is suitable, and it is important not to forget to label your own advertising materials).
- *
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The idea of such advertising is not so much to get clicks and conversions, but to cover as large a stratum of audience as possible and to inform about your company, make it known. Various viral videos and videos made on the basis of current trends in social networks work well to solve this problem.
5. Attend and organize industry events
Perhaps the only item on this list that is not related to the internet. In almost any sphere you can find various conferences, forums, master classes and other events where a large number of potential customers, as well as partners of the company are concentrated. Participation in such meetings is an important step in expanding your reach, pumping up your reputation and creating business connections.
You can always organize events yourself and invite guests. An open house, a birthday party, a celebration of some date – the occasion can be anything. Of course, you will have to invest financially, but it is a great way to make yourself known, increase the loyalty of current customers and find new ones.
Handling reviews as part of building a reputation: 3 important rules
If you compare a company’s reputation to a car, feedback is definitely its engine. Feedback is a reference point and a safety net for all new customers, so it should be given special attention from the first days.
Here are the 3 main rules.
Rule #1: Respond to everyone at all times
To both the positive and the negative. Everything is clear with the positive, we thank you for it and do not skimp on words, because the person spent his time to write something good about us. The negative is a bit more complicated, it is important:
- To be constructive.Remove yourself from emotions, identify the problem and try to solve it without getting personal;
- Avoid patterns.Try to find a different approach to each situation and respond in a personalized way that shows your professionalism;
- Be polite.Yeah,even if they’re texting you. At least you will look better against the background of someone who does not know how to express his thoughts censoriously. And, of course, save face;
- Apologize.If you did make a mistake, it is fair to the client and to yourself to admit it. No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, the ability to apologize is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Let’s take a look at the example below, the response to the review is pretty good, but there’s one “but”, guess what it is?
Hint: pay attention to the date of the answer. And that brings us to rule number two.
Rule number two: be prompt.
A well-handled review is a review that is handled in the here and now. No longer than 24 hours from the time it was written. This is especially important in the case of negative reviews. If you need time to understand the situation and give the customer a thorough response, you can write it that way:“We are now looking into the situation, gathering facts, and will give a full answer at that time.”. Just don’t forget to actually give a full answer after that 🙂
Promptness in handling feedback is a sign that the company is as switched on as possible and has its finger on the pulse. So it’s a nice bonus to your reputation.
Rule #3: Don’t delete reviews
Yes, even the really bad ones. Yes, even the ones that are commissioned by competitors or written by trolls and are not true. We’ve already talked about the really bad but honest ones, see point #1.
As for customized reviews, they are even easier to deal with. If they are written on any recommendation service, the issue can be resolved through the support service, providing evidence that you did not work with the client who left a review. As practice shows, the admins have no problem removing such reviews themselves to maintain the image of the site.
If a custom review is written on an independent site, for example, in social networks, you can make a calm, balanced response and ask the author to provide evidence of cooperation, for example, a photo of a check or contract, a screen shot of correspondence with the manager. If the review is real and there is evidence, we act according to the algorithm “constructive, polite, apologize, without templates”. If there is no evidence, the dialog will most likely end on your request to provide it, and this will already be a confirmation of your innocence.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, a good reputation is necessary to attract customers and successfully promote your product.
1. Building a reputation from the ground up should ideally start before the company is even opened, or at least from the first days of its existence.
2. Build a reputation on quality products, great service and honest, professional relationships with customers and partners.
3. the best and easiest way to build a company’s reputation is through the Internet. To do this, it is necessary to develop a website, create representation in social networks, register in recommendation services, budget for advertising campaigns in the network and, of course, do not forget to attend industry events.
4. The mouthpiece of reputation is the feedback from your customers. Therefore, it is important to always respond to them regardless of their tone and do it promptly. Negative reviews are not deleted, but dealt with particularly carefully.
In this article, we have not covered all aspects of working with the reputation of the company on the Internet, but we have a great basic guide, which gives a starting understanding of the process. Use it, and the positive feedback from your clients will not be long in coming 🙂
