WTH: What Are Folks Saying About My Company?

Your Online Reputation Matters

If you don’t know about your company’s Reputation online, you need to. These days your online reputation comes from all types of social media platforms - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Yelp, and the list goes on and on. And, believe me, what other people say about you matters.

"42 percent of consumers say that negative reviews make them not want to use a business.” - BrightLocal’s 2016 Local Consumer Review Survey

"On average a dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience, while around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people.” This statistic is attributed to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs but since they no longer exist I couldn’t verify this. Nevertheless, I believe that this is certainly in the realm of possibility. The bottom line, dissatisfied customers will tell others. This is not always the case with satisfied customers. You have to ASK satisfied customers to give you a review.

Consider these other results from BrightLocal’s Research:

“ Consumers form opinions about a business fast, with 68 percent forming an opinion by reading just one to six reviews. Almost nine out of 10 consumers determine whether they can trust a business after reading 10 or fewer online reviews.” - BrightLocal

“ 87 percent of people want to see three- to five-star reviews about a business before they will consider using them, while only 14 percent would consider using a business with a one- or two-star rating.” - BrightLocal

“ 50 percent of consumers have been asked to leave a review about a business and actually left a review.” - BrightLocal

The conclusion is that people use online reviews to decide on who they will do business with AND if asked, half the people will leave reviews for your business. So, you need to ask.

Negative Reviews - How To Deal With Them

The most common type of negative consumer reviews are from your customers. Whether the work was late, the bill was higher than expected or any number of other reasons. Are these always fair? Some are and some aren’t. Either way you need to handle these reviews quickly and in the same place the reviews were left.

Most review sites won’t allow you to take down a review, unless you can prove it is not a consumer of your services. But, most all will allow you to respond to a negative review. So, you should do that. If you can identify who the reviewer is, try to call and get them satisfied, they may take down the review, or at least do a follow up and say that you handled it. This may be even more impressive than just getting a good review.

{Full Disclosure: While writing this article I found a bad review (1-Star) on my Facebook business page. It was from a person I wasn’t contracted with but was in the land deal. She thought I didn’t get the work to them fast enough so they could buy the land. I was able to resolve it.}

If you can’t satisfy the customer, at least put a response in. DO NOT get angry and show that in your response. You should handle the reviews professionally.

Are your competitors putting out negative information about you? That is very possible. Some folks see this as a fair way to compete, but as Professionals, this shouldn’t be done. Again, if you can identify them, contact them and ask for them to take down the negative review. If not, then at least respond to the review, professionally of course.

Are your employees talking about your company online? Most do, and probably only a small percentage are negative. But, again, you should handle this immediately as well. Go to the employee and see if you can resolve the issue. If it can’t be resolved, then, again respond professionally online. I’ll leave it up to you how you handle that internally.

It’s also very possible for an employee you fired to leave negative reviews. What do you do? You guessed it, handle it. Go to them and/or respond to the review. PROFESSIONALLY. (Consider the Golden Rule.)

Asking Your Customers For Reviews

All of the review sites have a way of connecting to them for folks to leave a review. I recommend getting a link to all of the major ones and placing it on your website to make it easier for these reviews. Maybe you put in on your Contact Us page. For example:

• Yelp - Pro7 Engineering Review Link (Please don’t leave any reviews, for example only.)
• Google Business - Huntsville Land Surveying Review Link

Monitor Your Reputation & Reviews

Google Alerts is an easy way to stay up-to-date on the 'mentions', 'likes', and 'conversations' of your business. Keep track of what people are saying about it, sites that are linked to it, quoted it, like your business or even complaining about it. This is called “reputation management.”

Example Alert: “Pro17 Engineering” OR “Keith Maxwell” OR “J Keith Maxwell”

You could also setup alerts for news items you want to keep up with.

Example: “economic growth Madison AL” OR “economic growth Huntsville” OR “new business Madison AL” OR “new jobs Huntsville”

Or, you could be just looking for news articles related to your keyword search terms so you have ideas for articles to write in your blog. (You are writing in your blog, right?)

Example: “land encroachment” OR “boundary encroachment” OR “structural encroachment” OR “fence encroachment” OR “driveway encroachment” OR “encroachment lawsuit”

Other ideas are to monitor your competition in the news. (I’ll let you figure that one out.) The options are limitless, you can setup an alert for about any topic you want. And, get it sent to your email on a daily or weekly basis.

See this site for more info about setting up Google Alerts.

Summary

Monitor your reputation online. If you find something you don’t like, try to handle it professionally. If that doesn’t work then put an answer to the bad review online. And, get enough good reviews to dilute the effect of the one bad one. As always, let me know if I can help you.

J. Keith Maxwell, PE, PLS has alerts setup to spy on all of his competitors, his neighbors, his old girlfriends, and his family. No wait, that’s Facebook.