No matter how good your brand is or how many loyal or delighted customers you have, you cannot keep all your customers happy every time. Sometimes it happens that a customer has a bad experience with your product or service, for example, due to a mistake of your employee. Such customers often share their bad experience on social media, blog or some news article. The result is that your brand ends up with a negative reputation on the Internet.
The problem with online reputation management is that anyone can post anything about your brand, be it good or bad, on the internet and you don’t have any control over it. Most of the time, you can only do something when the damage has already been done. But the important thing is to do everything ethically possible to repair your brand’s online reputation. Here are some tips for you.
Investigate The Situation
When such incidents happen, first of all, don’t panic. Stay calm and don’t post an apology or any other note without thinking it through. Often times the bad experience is not because of the product or service. Therefore, investigate the matter first and then take the correct actions to make things right.
Post a Public Apology
If the customer had a bad experience due to your product or service and you are sure about it, then instead of posting a private apology to your customer do it publicly. Accepting your mistake is the easiest way of making things right. However, don’t be defensive in your apology and never try to act as a victim.
Take Down The Negative Reviews
If you have resolved your matters with the customer then kindly ask them to remove their negative reviews about your brand from all the sources. If they don’t agree to take it down or cannot do it because of lack of control over the website where they have posted, then ask them to post a follow-up note saying your company rectified the situation and how happy they are with the results. This will also act as a note for your potential customers ensuring them that your company takes good care of the customers.
Hire a Reputation Management Resource
If you lack the skills and experience to control the damage and repair your brand’s online reputation, then hire a reputation management expert and let him take care of things for you. This is the easiest method to do it because an expert will have connections and experience to make things right for your company.