Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

What exactly do you mean by a Reputation Management Tool?

You can MONITOR your online reputation by creating an appropriate Google Alert that will warn you any time it finds a reference to your name, company name, brand name, issue or whatever you set up as an alert.

The thing about your REPUTATION is that it's like a helium-filled balloon. Once lost, it's hard to get it back. The best way to manage reputation, is to have great service, a great product, and encourage the people who deliver your product or service to behave in a socially acceptable way. In other words, the best way to manage your reputation is to ensure you always do the right thing by the customer.

You can do a Net Promoter survey of customers post-purchase to see how satisfied they are - or, rather, to see how likely they are to recommend you to their friends. Details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter but that system has pros and cons... It's just one metric, albeit one many people rely upon. It helps a business learn, through, what you're doing right, and what you're not...

Some of these so-called reputation management tools provide ways to stack the deck in your own favour, by creating false profiles that give positive reviews and five-star ratings, but ultimately you'll struggle to keep up against the whole world of potential customer reviews out there. If your business behaves badly you WILL end up with a tarnished reputation. How you recover from that is more about changing what caused the problem in the first place, rather than outweighing or silencing your detractors.

What's the real reason you asked this question? In other words, what are you trying to achieve?

I googled David Sprague and found what he is talking about. Here is a link where people hash out the pros and cons.
https://www.warriorforum.com/offline-marketing-discussions/693587-anyone-us...

The program makes some very strong statements which I doubt can be supported. And the program is not doing the work for you, but giving you tips on ho to do it.

That helium filled balloon image that ChrisV said is a great image, and needs to be kept in mind. Great reputations are built on great products and services, not reputation management systems. You can't fix a crappy reputation if the crappiness is for real.

I'd like to put this the other way around. And this follows closely on the heels of Peter's last paragraph.

Now, for my higher level services, I require my prospect to supply me with at least one negative review. Not just someone mouthing off because they dropped their newly purchased item on their feet - but something that genuinely speaks to something that the company doesn't do well.

My point in saying this is twofold. Firstly, nobody and no business (even a corporation) can be all things to all men. That means you'll upset someone. Secondly what you're not doing well usually points to what you are doing well.

Most importantly of all, your better class of customer won't mind what you don't do well, mainly because they're not expecting it of you anyway. They're expecting a quality result in the way you do it best. The other side to this is that a prospect who's looking to your business will see the negative review, and realizing it's not important will understand that you are at least being open and honest. This latter point is extremely important in a world crammed to the corners with highly polished acts that are little more than criminal activities.

So when it comes to reputation management, please be very careful! You may be trying to erase the very thing that'll give you real cred when it comes to your better class of customer!!

I'd shy away from offers on the WarriorForum. One way to monitor your reputation is through Google Alerts and by keeping a constant eye on the prize.

Great Quote from Peter (henna gaijin): "You can't fix a crappy reputation if the crappiness is for real."

Love your work Peter!