Reputation Management – the new frontier

Well it seems that many companies still do not believe in the power of the Internet and in particular the changes in marketing and customer relations that have happened as a result of web 2.0.

Technology is now available to trawl the Internet for any mentions of your company or brand and monitor the conversations going on. We can even categorise these conversations by “Sentiment” as to whether they are positive negative or neutral mentions. (In fact a simple search on Google around your company/brand name and obvious key words on the main search and blogs search will give you some idea). But then what ? Well in today’s world,if you know people are talking about your brand then it follows that you must enter a dialogue with them.

Let’s take, for example, the follow up to my last blog post regarding “Trying to recruit a .Net developer in Stockport” which I published in August. Despite their promises,the company involved, RMI Recruitment in Leeds, failed to suggest any suitable candidates as a replacement for the first candidate who was hired but left after a few weeks. I sent an email to the managing director last week asking for a refund on the basis that they had not performed against their promise. I got no reply … nothing. Nada!

As a result I believe that I have been treated shabbily. In the olden days I may have thought about the small claims court or some such redress. But in today’s world the first thing I want to do is express myself and let everyone – in particular other potential customers how badly I have been treated and that I didn’t think that I got value for Every company now needs to contemplate how they should manage user feedback on their products and services in this public arena. The power has shifted and there needs to be a recognition that to protect your brand you need to do something.

This conversation management process falls into the category of Social Media Marketing. It is now very important for companies to be transparent and have open conversations with their customers. Other customers will then not only see the negative comments but the fact that you are doing something about the complaints and that you are being responsive and responsible. This is hugely attractive behaviour for the consumer and your brand will gain respect. You can engage your customers in a blog or a forum (or both) and even reach out to the complainants with old fashioned face to face PR.

Lets see what happens with RMI Recruitment over the next few weeks…..