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As social media becomes more and more important in the way that consumers communicate with companies, reputation management is more important than ever. Social media and customer service are integrated, and the two departments must work together to deliver customer service through social media; and help in preventing reputation management snafus. A company’s reputation is crucial because consumers look to other online reviews and take what complete strangers write about your company as truth. When your company undertakes the important task of managing your reputation, there are pitfalls that you should avoid. Here they are presented as the 7 Deadly Sins of Reputation Management.
- Lust: Of course, your company’s reputation is extremely important and can be something that your company stakeholders covet. However, this can often lead to artificially creating branding which will lead to problems in the future. Being authentic is one of the most important things you can do when presenting your company. Fake news is making a lot of headlines right now, and you can see the negative effects and bad consequences that can occur. If you try to counter negative points on your reputation with anything fake, because you have such a strong lust for a positive reputation, then usually the result will be much worse in the long run.
- Gluttony: If you feel like your social media campaigns are requiring you to be everywhere at once, you might be suffering from social media gluttony. If your company’s social media department isn’t large enough to efficiently post, engage, and measure all social channels, then only focus on the channels that serve you best and allow you to be most efficient. Using your monitoring tools can help you see which channels are best for you and also allow you to monitor any negativity and stay on top of engagement opportunities.
- Greed: Your reputation is not all about money. If you treat your customers or your social media campaigns like dollar signs, then chances are the result will be negative rather than positive. Remember that social media is about engagement and the focus should be social in nature, not sales in nature. When you treat your customers well on social by engaging and presenting valuable and interesting information, it can result in sales, but is achieved in a roundabout way rather than the hard sell. When your audience has a memorable and positive experience with your company socially, then they will become loyal customers who will think of your company when they have a need for your products or services.
- Sloth: Ignoring your reputation can be the worst thing. You should always have a focus on your branding and in today’s world, you almost always have to have a social presence, if not for anything but to protect your reputation and monitor what people are saying about your company.
- Wrath: This subject is one of the trickiest and often most difficult aspects of dealing with or protecting your reputation. You cannot get offended and react in anger to negativity from consumers or your audience. Always avoid responding in anger and do not let mean, negative comments get under your skin. Never argue with a customer, especially not in a public forum. Instead, present the facts, apologize for the customer’s negative experience (which can be done without admitting fault), and try to resolve the situation or take it off line.
- Envy: While it is important to monitor your competitors and gain competitive intelligence knowledge, it is not productive to be envious of your competitor’s reputation or superior social presence. Instead, focus on what you can do to better engage with and interact with your audience and improve your own reputation. Never become so envious that you try to sabotage or otherwise negatively engage with your competitors. With the technology available today, you can be uncovered, and that looks worse than anything else.
- Pride: One of the keys of resolving negative complaints online is just showing the complaining consumer in question (and everyone else reading their complaint and your interaction with it) that you are there to help and care enough to attempt to resolve the issue. Of course, you want to resolve the problem for the customer who is complaining about it, but you are also showing hundreds or even thousands of other potential consumers that you resolve issues. For most of them, that is all they care about and they are not even concerned with the details of the problem or how you resolve it. One of the main things is not being too proud to say sorry. You should always apologize for the problem, or their negative experience. You can always find a way to do this without admitting guilt if your company didn’t do anything wrong. Of course, if there was a mistake on your end, you should definitely admit fault. Always be genuine in your wish to resolve the problem. This can immediately stop any further escalation and reduce anger.
Conclusion and Takeaways for Your Company
You should keep the seven deadly sins in mind so that you know what to avoid when dealing with your company’s reputation management. Remember how important it is to have a positive reputation, but also remember that no company is perfect and consumers do not expect you to be perfect. What they do expect is that you are willing and gracious when it comes to resolving problems. Use media monitoring software and social listening tools to stay on top of your reputation and remember that there are even media monitoring intelligence programs available that cover both online and offline mentions to protect your reputation on all fronts.
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- The 7 Deadly Sins of Reputation Management - April 25, 2017