There is a world of information online, and as business owners, we don’t have as much power to influence what’s being communicated about our company’s products and services as we would like to.  Online Reputation Management is even more important than ever for every company to be engaged in.

Many of JSN’s clients have approached us about engaging in Reputation Management, and they have already realized the dark side of online review websites and the open conversation that goes on with Twitter and Facebook users.

I have a great company, who would say bad things about us?

More people that one would think.  First, disgruntled employees and unhappy customers make some tracks online.  It only takes one well-placed, poor review to discourage hundreds, even thousands of potential customers to visit your website, step foot in your store or contact your company about services.

90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users. (Econsultancy, July 2009)

Why would I want to be involved with social media if I’m going to get bad reviews?

You don’t get to decide to allow reviews or not.  Websites like Yelp, Citysearch, and recently, Foursquare take a lot of criticism for allowing users to post anything they want about local businesses.  The good news is that the majority of reviews placed online are positive, and if you remedy the situation as soon as the review is placed, you may have a chance of getting the reviewer to change their opinion.  In many cases, unhappy customers simply want the business to acknowledge their dissatisfaction.   Just by responding to the review, you may neutralize the situation enough that the reviewer won’t go around telling all of their friends and family not to use your services and products.

Bad reviews can be good.

No one likes bad reviews.  If there’s a silver lining, consider this valuable feedback that you can use to improve your business.  Wouldn’t you rather one customer told you about their bad experience so you could fix the problem before losing a number of future customers?  If it’s an issue that can be fixed, maybe you could invite the reviewer back for a complimentary meal, service or product.  They may change their review, and you may gain more customers in the long run.  Use all reviews, bad and good, to improve your business.

Who has time for this?

We do.  JSN runs reports every morning that alert us to when our clients have been mentioned in the news, blogs and online review sites.  We relay any pertinent information to the client, thank positive reviewers and tend to poor reviews.  We also maintain a good track record of removing illegitimate reviews and equalizing poor reviews.