It may have taken several years of hard work to build a good reputation for your business, but all it takes is five minutes for it to be ruined. Having a good reputation is vital for business success, so it makes sense you try to protect your brand as much as possible. Should the worst happen, and you gain a bad rep, there are ways you can reverse it.
Acknowledgment
If your business is getting some bad press, there’s little point in sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. It won’t happen, and it’s likely to get worse as more people try to jump on the bandwagon. There’s nothing like bad reviews for encouraging more to come out of the woodwork, even unsubstantiated ones. The best way to deal with your bad rep is to acknowledge it exists.
Learn a Valuable Lesson
Think of criticism as a positive thing and pledge to do better. Within the harshest of reviews, there’s going to be something you can learn. It might be something to do with the quality of your product, the effectiveness of your customer service, the efficiency of your shipping service or the height of your prices. If you didn’t have bad reviews, you might not realize you were failing your customers.
Know When to Walk Away
There may come a time when you fall victim to a smear campaign. This might include reviews that have nothing to do with how you run your business. Luckily, most savvy consumers can spot this kind of thing from miles away, so you don’t need to waste your time trying to defend your corner. Taking the bait and rising to the challenge is likely to do more harm than good. Showing customers that you’re working to correct the real problems is far more valuable.
Reassure Your Customers
When you’ve identified the customers with a valid issue, it’s important you let them know how you plan to address them. It might be hard to start with, but you need to examine your business and admit there are shortcomings you need to correct. Connect with customers who have left bad reviews and let them know you appreciate what they’ve shared with you. You can then move on to explain how you plan to change things in the future and then ask them to try your products again so they can see your commitment to improving the customer experience. This is all part of regaining their trust.
One further tip is to look at the way you market your products and services and see if there’s something you can do to reduce the chance of getting a bad reputation. It pays to be honest and transparent with customers, and you can do this with the help of a good marketing strategy. If you want to know more about effective marketing visit tonivans.com for more information.
As long as you catch things early enough and don’t let things get out of hand, the steps above should help turn around your bad reputation. If however, it’s gone too far a brand refresh is another option. It will need to be handled very carefully and isn’t an option for everyone.