How to Build a Positive Online Reputation

The best way to keep your business going and growing is to make your customers happy. By keeping them satisfied and happy, they consider your business as the best solution provider for their needs. But more importantly, they help spread the good word about your company to their friends, partners, and colleagues, cementing your good reputation.

Building a good reputation should be one of the primary goals of a company. It will take your business much further than you can go with a mediocre or bad one. When your business is seen as a good, honest, dedicated, and service-oriented entity, your customers will go out of their way to help you—advertising you through word-of-mouth, ordering more of your products than usual, defending you against negative reviews, etc. By building a good reputation, you increase your success, quality of life, and level of happiness for everyone involved—management, stakeholders, employees, suppliers, and customers.

So how do you build a positive online reputation? Take heed of these simple guidelines.

1. Routinely check your e-mail, chat room, forums, and message database for any messages you might receive. Many times, customers send praises, criticisms, inquiries, and suggestions. Make sure you answer them as thoroughly as you can. By responding to their messages, they become assured that there is a person behind the website. Doing so also builds trust and encourages interaction between you and your readers.

2. If a customer commends your product, offer, service, or had a good experience with your company, thank him for the commendation. If you can afford it, give him a small token—a discount over his next purchase or a corporate mug as a souvenir. You may also want to inform him of an event—an online sale, for instance—ahead of time. These freebies will surely keep your customers coming back for more.

3. Ask customers who had a positive experience in dealing with your company to write and post a review about their experience. If you have a well-known customer—a celebrity, politician, local star, model, etc.—who availed of your offers and is extremely satisfied of your product or service, take advantage of the situation and request for a review. Post the review on your website, product review sites, and social networking sites.

4. Social media is now part of a modern company’s marketing plan. Using it properly, however, requires a few tricks, and they all involve practicing good ethics.

Do not talk badly about competitors in your website or any other social networking site.
If it is absolutely necessary to talk about your competition, do it in a way that will not jeopardize their business. Be neutral about your conversation
Post tasteful, high-quality photos of your people, products, services, and others. Quality photos earn you the respect of your viewers.
Make sure anything that involves text is properly edited. Mistakes in grammar, syntax, spelling, sentence construction, etc. in your marketing and information collaterals can pass you off as unprofessional, happy-go-lucky entity.
Do not send unsolicited advertisements, or spam, to forums, chat rooms, customer websites, and anywhere else. This is a very bad habit and annoys a lot of people. Website administrators may even block or ban your account. If you need to advertise, do it the proper way—contact the administrator or owner of the site and ask permission to post advertisements.

5. Be involved in charitable organizations, and promote them online. Post links to the organization on your website and social networking sites. If your company is sponsoring a charitable event, say tree-planting at a deforested area, make a post about it and encourage others in the community to join. Promoting your corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy gives you a positive image.

6. Develop and maintain good and legitimate business practices. If your business dealings and operations are shady, your reputation is certainly going to be tarnished. And remember, bad news travels extremely fast, and people will start to talk. Be professional and serve your customers with honesty, clarity, and integrity.

On that note, always place your complete contact details (e.g., mailing address, phone number, fax number, PO Box number, e-mail, etc.) on your website and any marketing collateral. By doing so, customers are assured that your company is legal, and they have the means to get in touch with you.

Finally, serve your customers the best you can. Help them sort out their selections. Provide suggestions and clarifications. Make sure deliveries are on time. No matter how faithfully you follow the rules mentioned above, at the end of the day, it is the quality of your product or service and how you deliver it that mainly counts.