How to Enhance Your Reputation

In business, reputation is vital, a poor reputation is sure to lose you customers, whilst a great reputation is the only thing that will really make your company stand out from competitors.

If the general beliefs surrounding your company are inaccurate or lacking in positivity, now is the time to take action and enhance your reputation before it does damage to profits.

When you make the most of tools at your disposal, most notably the web, enhancing your reputation is straightforward. Here are a few steps that will help get you started:

Pay attention to customer reviews

Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, and never has it been easier to get a review across to hundreds or thousands of followers at one time.

The internet has made it possible for everyone to instantly share their opinions and experiences, whether in the form of lengthily Trip Advisor posts or 140 character tweets.

To enhance your reputation you need to ensure that as many of these reviews as possible are positive. So listen to what your customers have to say and take note of their suggestions; what can you do to change their mind the next time they interact with you?

Keep connected with your consumer

Once you’ve started paying attention to reviews, keep connected with your customers. The way you make your customers feel is an important aspect of building a great reputation; making your customers feel truly valued is vital – so many businesses make their consumer feel like just another number and don’t take time to really consider what they need and enjoy.

You can keep connected with your customer in a number of ways. If you’re a small business you may have the luxury of contacting them directly with personally tailored offers and communications, whilst social networks are a great place to keep your customer base updated and ask them for their thoughts and suggestions.

A great reputation relies on being honest too. Accept responsibility when you have underperformed and offer sincere apologies alongside real solutions for their product or service troubles. If you read a negative review that can be resolved, take the time to reply and make the situation right.

Invest in customer service training

Making sure your customers feel valued has a lot to do with how your staff treat your customer at every interaction. If you want to improve your customer experience, investing in training is extremely worthwhile and should not be considered a luxury.

Though an initial outlay is required, giving your teams the skills they need to offer exceptional service is key in improving reputation and in turn company profits.

Make things easy

Are you making things easy for your customer? Doing business with you should be a joy, so reassess your customer journey to guarantee that everything is running smoothly from the customer’s point of view.

Or make improvements to your company website – is it straightforward for customers to find contact details and service information?If they’ve placed an order with you, are you making sure you’re sending parcels or goods out on time?

Or it may also mean looking at your retail premises– is the lighting suitable in the changing rooms?

The easier you can make it for the customer, the more likely they will be to do business with you again and spread the word about your company.