(Newswire.net — May 28, 2013) Kansas City, KS — They say “ignorance is bliss,” but one guy says that that ignorance could drive thousands of businesses out of business this year. Justin West owns a local marketing company called Hundreds of Customers, and one of the areas they specialize in is reputation management. “After advice from a friend, the statistics show that people trust online reviews.” Mr. West adds that sometimes people trust online reviews more than a personal recommendation. “After all,” he says, “if your friend says that he knows a great dentist or a good car guy, and when you look up directions you see a slew of bad reviews, aren’t you going to re-think your friend’s recommendation?”
Mr. West says that there are Six main steps businesses can take to proactively protect and grow their business’s reputation. The first step is get your reputation checked out. Mr. West says that there are some companies that will do that for a fee, but it’s simple enough for most business owners to do with a few hours worth of time. He also offers a free reputation report on his website, at http://www.hundredsofcustomers.com/6-steps-to-protecting-your-reputation.
In the process of checking out your reputation, the second step is to claim any major local listings on pages like Yelp.com and Google+ Local.
Third, business owners should monitor their reputation at least weekly for changes, and, forth, address all negative reviews as soon as their seen — even posts from years ago.
Fifth, the business owner should seek to foster what Mr. West calls a “reputation culture” in their workplace, explaining to their workers the dire importance of customer experiences and their reputation to the future of the business.
Sixth, if possible, the owners ought to try to encourage customers to leave good reviews for them. “Two warnings on that last part,” cautions Mr. West: “First, make sure that they actually had a good experience. Some customers will smile the whole time and then gut you online! Second, never forge reviews. The review sites know, and they’ll penalize you for it.”
Mr. West’s company also offers reputation marketing and management, which, he explains, “can help businesses keep bad reviews off of the internet and help accelerate the process of building up their 5-star reputation.”