As the brand guardian of our own companies, we have to manage our companies’ reputations.
It is interesting to note that offline reputation tends to be easier to protect. That’s because our customers don’t have the tools that we have to spread the news of our own reputation. They don’t have the money to spend on advertisements in TV, radio, newspapers or magazines. That’s too expensive for them. When any of our customers have problem with us, we can manage them in silo. We can try to keep them as happy as they can be with our customer service.
However for the online reputation, our customers have exactly the same tools as us to create websites, to spread the word in social media, in search engines and even affordably in online advertisements! It’s a total different way of managing online reputation when you have the same power as your customers in spreading the message.
What’s the key thing in managing online reputation?
Online reputation speaks about being real with your customers, and always to improve your products and services. If your products and services have certain flaws, you may have to admit it and to improve. Failure to listen to your customers online, will tend to open up more people talking about your problem, causing your business to deteriorate easily.
And what’s the key thing in managing offline reputation?
Offline reputation speaks about making your unhappy customers to become happy. You got to have a dedicated customer service department who can cater to their needs, hoping that they will not spread bad news to their friends (or even through the Internet although your online presence is very little!).
Maintaining your quality of your products and services
Whether it is online or offline, it voices down to maintain your quality and to become better! That’s because as of 2009, social media is confirmed to stay and is on the rise with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and even more. Every webware online is becoming social in one way or another. That’s because everybody wants to care and share with one another in this world!
What does this mean to the offline businesses?
It is as good as saying that you are losing competition to your competitors who have presence online. No matter where you are, whether you are in Asia where people tend to say that online store don’t work, or whether you are in a rural country where the Internet is very scarce. Social media is here to stay.
Will this become another Internet bubble burst like in 1997?
This time round, the bubble has become bigger than ever. In 1997, everybody are so excited about setting their own online portal. Investors are rushing in to give their money. One-stop shop seems to be ideal in the online world. Although not many people can get the idea that one-stop-shop website is as difficult as building a business with multiple businesses (like Courts and Ikea), many people have started to build a website with a single focus.
Online store like Amazon is not easy to start actually. It involves a lot of hidden agendas to work with. Internally, you have to manage inventory, externally you have to handle sales. Unless you have huge amount of targeted traffic, it is probably not going to work.
Today, the websites have become very smart to research, build and measure so that they can be very useful. The bubble is definitely going to be bigger because this time round, people are spending money and we will never know where it will head into.
Conclusion
Online reputation is a very different ball game from offline reputation. You cannot use offline tactics to handle online, and vice versa. Many businesses are evading social media because they are not in the capacity to be “exposed” for their trade secrets (which can be easily googled). Businesses are definitely clear that online is the new way to go, but they are not willing to “let go” since they have been working in this way “efficiently” for many years. We’ll see how long they can still survive without hearing the people’s crying voices online…
Recommended reading:
Radically Transparent: Monitoring and managing reputations online
