Reputation management consultants offer their clients a great many services in terms of helping them to manage their online reputation and what is being said about the business online. These guys are absolute experts in their field and they can help with social media management, online reviews, posted content and many other aspects of your online reputation. Despite the range of services which these companies are able to offer, there is one particular type of client who approaches them more than any other, and that is those who have already had their reputation tarnished. Whilst it makes sense to use a service like this when you are fire fighting, it is far better to have them in your corner first. Take a look at just how easy it is to have your online reputation damaged.
Disgruntled Employee
Let’s say that you let a member of staff leave who is not happy about the decision, they can quite easily contribute to hurting your online reputation and it won’ take much work for them to do so. For example they could take to review sites, pretend to be someone who has used your business and write all kinds of negativity about their experience. They may also look to use social media to write lies about the company. If any of this gets picked up and shared , your rep will take a hit.
Bad Day
Sometimes a business just has a bad day where things don’t go right and the customers leave unhappy, it happens. Unfortunately however we are in a world where the public have the ability to film everything that is going on and all it takes is a video of your bad day going viral and this will cause real damage to your company’s reputation. Let’s say that you have a restaurant and you had two sick calls that you can’t cover, the waitress is under stress, she’s trying to do the best she can but she losing it slightly with a customer, if this is on film then it will go viral and people will only remember your business for that.
Guilt by Association
Even when you are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, a company can still easily have its reputation torn to pieces. Let’s assume that you have a business partner with whom you work with regularly, and you are very public about this partnership. Now let’s say that your partner company have been found to have been committing fraud, or hiring illegal workers, or an other illegal activity. Once this news breaks, you have to remember that your name is very much attached to theirs online, and you can very easily be found guilty by association in terms of the court of public opinion.
As you can see, a reputation can be obliterated and it doesn’t take much time or effort for that to happen. Given the damage that this can cause, it makes sense to get on the front foot and hire a rep management company before the fire starts.