Written by Fani Sánchez
Índice
What is online reputation?
Online reputation is the set of opinions that the public or customers have of a person, company or brand, expressed on the Internet. This set of opinions makes up a public image or reputation.
We are therefore talking about the concept of traditional reputation extrapolated to the online world. Let’s not forget the interrelation of both “dimensions”: any opinion that has generated an interaction with the brand offline can be transferred to the online world.
Online reputation, therefore, it is not only based on our own experiences with a company but also on the impact caused by the experiences of third parties which, thanks to the amplification that we live today through the Internet and social networks, we can know instantly, and also the actions and reactions of the brand in different contexts, even if they do not affect us directly.
The public, understood as the concept of all those people who can form an image of your company, is a very generic concept that does justice to its reality: we speak of all those actors who have a relationship with the brand, such as those who have worked for them, those who pay for your product or service, those who own a share of the business or who do business with the brand, or those people whose lives are influenced directly or indirectly by the brand.
The reputation of a company or brand can be positive or negative, and this will directly influence our profits, whether we are talking in terms of sales or influence. A good reputation inspires trust, truthfulness and closeness. All these values, in turn, will influence the person to recommend us to others. In other words, regardless of their own experience with the brand, a good reputation can naturally turn any user into a prescriber.
Building a positive reputation can take a lifetime, but today, it can be ruined in just a few seconds. As my grandmother would say, opinionis free!
Channels receiving opinions
Nowadays, communication between people has been brutally amplified due to the Internet. As a result, opinions can even be expressed anonymously, without censorship, and can spread immediately through a multitude of channels.
Vertical search engines and niche social networks
Sites like TripAdvisor (where we find restaurants, hotels, museums and much more) that are based precisely on the recommendations and opinions of users about specific local businesses.
Generic social networks such as Facebook or Twitter
Who hasn’t ever posted an opinion on these social platforms whose raison d’être is to share experiences? In addition, most brands or companies have a presence in them.
Personal blogs
A multitude of platforms such as Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress… We can all have our own logbook, post opinions in them and receive other opinions through comments.
Forums
With a great Internet tour, these are the platforms where people go to raise issues on which they express doubts and opinions. They are usually a level of expertise and have hardly changed in form, although they have changed in number, since their basis remains the same and their very name indicates it: sharing opinions.
The importance of all these opinions is such that applications have already been designed that are very popular among e-commerce type sites such as Verified Opinions and the like to generate trust in brands and thus increase sales.
Monitoring of our brand image
Monitoring what is said about us on the Internet will be a valuable input for decision making in our marketing strategy and its advantages are multiple.
- Detect weaknesses: it will help to find out what the negative opinions are and tackle the problems that originate them and that we may not be aware of. From the poor management of your store’s stock to the malfunction of a web form or poor after-sales service.
- Tackling reputational crises. Intercepting negative opinions for justified or unjustified causes, in an effective manner, serves to stop, in most cases, reputation crises that negatively affect the company and that are often associated with losses in revenue or loss of prestige.
- Increase revenues. A good brand reputation will build customer loyalty, who will buy or hire the brand as long as they are satisfied and will also recommend the services or products to other customers who will in turn do the same.
- Gain satisfied customers. Tackling the problems that lead to negative feedback often results in satisfied customers or users. Satisfied customers buy more and can become evangelists of your brand or business.
- Amplify positive feedback. Satisfied users will, in the best of cases, express positive opinions on the Internet about the brand or company in question, which will contribute to a positive reputation.
Good monitoring is also very useful to observe the competition and their movements.
Reputational crisis
Reputational crises are always generated by a poor management of a problem or negative user opinion, and not by the problem itself.
Something I want to highlight in this article is that reputation crises are always generated after a bad management of a problem or negative opinion of a user, and not because of the problem itself. If you make a complaint about a bad after-sales service, and instead of offering you a solution we respond late and badly, this simple complaint can turn into a real anger due to your bad management. From this point on, the customer can use all the means at his disposal to spread his discomfort and other users will probably empathize with him. This can lead to a much larger online protest movement (which would not have happened in other times) and this, in turn, can precipitate us straight into a reputation crisis.
Some of the aspects of our image or business that can lead to a reputation crisis are:
- Slow and unsatisfactory response to incidents and complaints.
- Failure to comply with deadlines or guarantees.
- Excessive tone and lack of sensitivity to certain issues.
- Lack of empathy.
- Poor service or product quality.
Many of these are underestimated in the day-to-day business of brands, which will end up taking its toll.
Reputational crisis cases
- Mercadona and food waste. This case is not so recent, but we keep it in mind because the article written by Fernando Maciá on the subject in its day, is still getting a lot of visits on our website. No one will explain this case to you better than he will.
- Zara and its poor designs. In 2014 the well-known Spanish fashion brand launched a T-shirt that bore a suspicious resemblance to Jewish prisoner pajamas from the Nazi extermination camps in World War II. I know, we couldn’t believe it either. The brand reacted with a statement in which it promised to (and I quote), “exterminate” it from the market, thus ending the trampling of its battered image.
- The Community Manager who makes a mess. This is another classic case in our country. Unfortunate responses from Community Managers of brands such as MediaMarkt or Fnac have entered the Top 10 of reputation crises. Brands choose to apologize, disassociate themselves from what was said and announce that responsibilities will be clarified, but the best solution in these cases is to give clear guidelines to those under your command from the beginning. Write a style guide or some other document that the CM can adhere to in order to avoid possible surprises.
Acting in the event of a reputation crisis
A priori many people simplify a reputation crisis to having had a problem with a user/supplier or others. Contrary to what one might think, it is not the problem that causes the reputation crisis, but its mismanagement.
Tackling a reputation crisis
To avoid rushing into a reputation crisis, there are two aspects that we consider fundamental:
- Prevention. Drafting documents and protocols and providing in-house company training.In addition to promoting fluid communication between departments and between the different hierarchical levels of the company, we can prevent some of the aspects that tend to lead to crises: outbursts of tone in our communication, unnecessarily lengthy processes and responses, etc.
- Speed. When it comes to providing solutions and answers, you have to be quick. We do not recommend allowing more than 24 hours to elapse.
Solving a reputation crisis
Once we are already immersed in a reputation crisis, we must act quickly:
- Be honest. Users will appreciate our honesty and transparency. The truth may not leave us in a very good position, but the courage to face it is a point and users will appreciate it.
- Apologize when necessary. Apologies range from apologizing to taking responsibility to ensure that it will not happen again.
- Leave theory behind and move on to practice. Do not let your words remain just that, words. Let words be turned into deeds and intentions into actions. And also, whenever possible, be verifiable and verifiable by users.
- Create frameworks for action. Although we will never be able to cover all the cases that give rise to a reputation crisis, it will be of great help to analyze all possible cases and specify them in a document together with the protocols for action in each case. This will help to streamline all processes and save on hassle.
