Ah, Happy Halloween, WebPunchers. It’s Matt Jones coming at you with a special Halloween edition of WebPunches School of Online Reputation Management. Let’s talk a little bit about Halloween and horror movies and what gets some of the people killed on said horror movies. Don’t be like those people. Learn the lessons that can help protect your reputation and help you survive until the sequel, of course.
So, let’s talk about number one. Know your surroundings. Just like the lady in the movie Psycho who is showering, but completely oblivious to the danger that was outside of the shower curtain, you should know how you look online. Do a Google search for your business. See what people are saying about your business. See what potential customers are going to see when they do a similar search so that you can make efforts to help control the message. Make sure you have great reviews across multiple websites to make sure that a lot of people are talking about you. And if those things aren’t happening, make sure that you put a reputation management program in place to improve the way you look so that you can control what people see and help control your surroundings.
Number two, know the skeletons that are in your closet. So, just like the movie, Nightmare on Elm Street, when they couldn’t kill Freddy and he seemed to be unbeatable, Nancy went and talked to the parents to learn what Freddy’s origin was so that they could help put together a strategy to beat him. In the end, it was to not fear him. And don’t fear what your customers are saying about you. Listen to the feedback you’re getting. Make sure you’re getting feedback to begin with, right? When you’re looking at that feedback, analyze. Look at the keywords that keep popping up that are used in a positive way and in a negative way so you can understand the strengths that are going to propel your business forward, but also understand those pesky skeletons that are in the closet and the things you need to work on to improve the customer experience. Don’t overlook customer feedback. It’s huge.
And finally, don’t be the girl who’s running away from the killer and trips and then gets killed. Don’t run away from the problems. Make sure that when you’re looking at customer feedback, when you have online reviews that maybe aren’t as favorable as you’d like them to be, take a stance and go straight on and contact that customer. Figure out how your customers like to be contacted. Whether it’s a call or an email. I’m someone that prefers email or text to calling, but a lot of times we’ll pick up the phone if people like that and we will make sure that they are heard and that we’re addressing any issues that they might have had so that we can make that experience better in the future. And that’s what you want to do. Don’t run away from those people and don’t let those negative messages online just sit there without having someone respond to them publicly; also try to reach out and make sure the person that wrote knows that they’ve been listened to and that you’re trying to take steps to improve their experience. I am Matt Jones with Web Punches Spooky Online School of Reputation Management and we will see you next horror film.
