Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/114173
Business insight Don't just manage your reputation, market your reputation! How to create a culture that focuses on constantly improving how consumers view your business B y now I am sure you have been bombarded competitor. Also, reviews posted by media manby all sorts of companies soliciting the agement companies and not from the consumer opportunity to "manage your reputation." are typically taken down or fagged. Have you Companies making all sorts of promises, from ever heard the saying, "Where there is confusion, "geting rid of negative reviews" to "posting posithere is proft"? Many of these companies may tive reviews from happy customers." try to take advantage of you. I have one word of advice for you: Beware. Most companies spend lots of money promotHow social media afects your business ing and advertising their company. How much In the old days, (about two years ago) the main money do you spend on making your company By Wayne Croswell concern with your reputation was making sure the best that it can be before you promote and you satisfed your customers every chance you advertise it? Many companies fall short on this one. In got. Well surprisingly, that mantra hasn't changed. What fact, they tend to overlook the importance of building the has changed is how customers (satisfed and unsatisfed) best reputation they can before they begin promoting it. tell others about the experience of doing business with you. In the book that I co-authored, "Entrepreneurial Insan- When someone experienced bad customer service in the ity in the Tire Industry," we talk about the defnition of past, they would tell on average nine to 15 other people, insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and who in turn would tell a few more and so on. It wasn't good expecting diferent results. Sound familiar? for business, but the negative impact and damage control Companies are vying for your promotional budget every was manageable. Did you know dissatisfed customers day. You can spend lots of money chasing this problem and tend to tell about their bad experience twice as much as in the end perhaps not have a lot to show for it. I am all satisfed ones are willing to share? for making sure your reputation is the best it can be, just In today's social media world and with the proliferalike you care about what is being said about your business. tion of mobile devices, this has all changed. Now, when But you need not jump on every ofer being made by these someone has a bad business experience, in addition to companies. Don't misunderstand me; your reputation (a telling their circle of close friends they tell the world. Tey good one) is paramount to your success. How you get are posting to social media sites at staggering rates. Sites there is the key. Some of these company claims simply like Google+, Yelp, Yahoo Local and Facebook are being can't be done. bombarded with reviews of customer experiences. Yelp For example, it's impossible to get a legitimate nega- has over 33 million reviews (good and bad) posted on it tive review removed from many review sites unless you and over 84 million visitors each month. Rating systems can prove it's a bogus review, such as one posted from a have been established that will score your business with stars or points. Yelp uses the fve-star method and Google+ uses a numerical ranking (one to 30) developed by Zagat. Your score is purely a mathematical calculation of all the reviews posted to those sites; 30 points is the equivalent of fve stars. Do a "Google search" and you will see the new rating system. Here are some very interesting statistics: • "One negative customer review can cost a company about 30 customers" — Convergys Corp. •"Each additional star in Yelp equates to a 5% to 9% increase in revenue." — Harvard Business School Here are the results of a Google search for Italian restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip, commonly referred to as the "Map Pack" of Google+ Local. 56 In addition, 89% of customers say they find online reviews to be trustworthy, 64% say they do online research before making purchase decisions, 85% are more likely to purchase products/services when they fnd recommenda- MTD March 2013