Strategies for managing reputation of a contractor
Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:07 am
7 out of 10 local consumers use to read up to 10 reviews, before deciding to hire a contracting business.
I am sure you have experienced this in your own life, in deciding what restaurants to go to or what service providers to work in, and in your business or at your home. There are always reviews out there that you turn to nowadays to find out: “Hey, what do other people think?”
And we read through a handful of those reviews before we make a decision and get comfortable selecting a particular vendor or company or restaurant, or whatever it is.
80% of local clients will purposely avoid contracting businesses with negative online reviews.
So the question is, who is talking about you. Because in today’s day and age, an unhappy customer can spread the word to tens, hundreds, thousands of their closest, what we call, “closest strangers” on the Internet.
These people on Facebook that are connected to hundreds of people on Facebook may not really be friends of theirs. They are just people that they have run across, that “friended” them on Facebook, and those same people are connected to hundreds of people.
You have this massive viral network; that is what social media is. So somebody goes out and posts something negative about your business, it can get around to a lot of people fast.
The real problem is, is that the people that are talking about you are oftentimes the people that are unhappy.
So your goal is to make sure that you have that 5 Star reputation. Do everything that you can to protect your reputation online.
So the question is, how do you do that?
Step number one is you want to take ownership of the profiles for your business and all of the key directories and networks that are out there.
Next, is you’ve got to do your best to try and publish your own story.
There is a lot of ways to do this. I am not asking you to become a full-time author. I am not asking you to become a movie producer or anything like that. But just making sure that you are doing things like announcing special promotions, putting up limited time offers. Sharing testimonials from happy customers, writing up quick little case studies about them: maybe some unique stories that you have about some of your customers that you could share.
Next tip is Staying connected with your customers
Making educational videos, and posting them to YouTube.
Finally, build a review collection system
I am sure you have experienced this in your own life, in deciding what restaurants to go to or what service providers to work in, and in your business or at your home. There are always reviews out there that you turn to nowadays to find out: “Hey, what do other people think?”
And we read through a handful of those reviews before we make a decision and get comfortable selecting a particular vendor or company or restaurant, or whatever it is.
80% of local clients will purposely avoid contracting businesses with negative online reviews.
So the question is, who is talking about you. Because in today’s day and age, an unhappy customer can spread the word to tens, hundreds, thousands of their closest, what we call, “closest strangers” on the Internet.
These people on Facebook that are connected to hundreds of people on Facebook may not really be friends of theirs. They are just people that they have run across, that “friended” them on Facebook, and those same people are connected to hundreds of people.
You have this massive viral network; that is what social media is. So somebody goes out and posts something negative about your business, it can get around to a lot of people fast.
The real problem is, is that the people that are talking about you are oftentimes the people that are unhappy.
So your goal is to make sure that you have that 5 Star reputation. Do everything that you can to protect your reputation online.
So the question is, how do you do that?
Step number one is you want to take ownership of the profiles for your business and all of the key directories and networks that are out there.
Next, is you’ve got to do your best to try and publish your own story.
There is a lot of ways to do this. I am not asking you to become a full-time author. I am not asking you to become a movie producer or anything like that. But just making sure that you are doing things like announcing special promotions, putting up limited time offers. Sharing testimonials from happy customers, writing up quick little case studies about them: maybe some unique stories that you have about some of your customers that you could share.
Next tip is Staying connected with your customers
Making educational videos, and posting them to YouTube.
Finally, build a review collection system