Today, your brand's reputation is everything. Your customers' perception of
your business and your brand is vital to the long-term success of your business.
I want to talk to you about seven mistakes that you could be making unknowingly that are hurting your business' brand and reputation.
The first mistake is:
What do I mean by that?
Basically, it's making false promises or claims that your product or service can do X, Y and Z, or that it can solve this kind of problem or it
has these kind of features.
Don't make unsubstantiated claims and fake promises because your customers will find out when they start using your product or service and it can't do what you said it can do. You'll get caught out.
Number two:
In business, negative feedback will always occur. For every 10 positive reviews that you get, you're bound to get one or two negative reviews.
So, what do you do about those negative reviews?
Reach out to those customers that left those negative reviews and find out from them what was the problem and how you can help them solve that problem. It's important, because again, if you do that, your customers will feel appreciated that you've reached out. You've listened to the problem that they had, and you've now looked at ways to help solve that problem.
Negative reviews also help you in your business because you can see where you are slipping up and where you need to improve.
It's important that you constantly look at the reviews that you're getting
and especially the negative reviews because you can go out and
turn those into positive experiences for your customers and then improve the reputation of your business.
The third mistake is:
Now that's just a cardinal sin. You just cannot be rude to your customers. You can't be rude to anyone for that matter.
If you are rude to your customers, they're going to tell their friends, and obviously, word of mouth, it just expands and grows and grows.
Being rude to your customers, treating them badly and not returning their phone calls, to some degree, could be considered bad.
Those things obviously hurt your business' reputation, so be friendly,
be nice to your customers. They are important. They're bringing money to your business, so ensure that you're treating them well.
The fourth mistake that you could be making is:
What's even worse than just mistreating your employees?
It's mistreating them in front of your customers.
Your employees are important and critical to your business. And if a customer sees you treating them badly, then obviously, what is their perception going to be of you as that business leader?
On the flip side as well, employees that get mistreated or are disgruntled
could take your business to Fair Work, they could lodge legal proceedings against your business for mistreatment and so forth.
It's important that you treat your employees well. They are important to your business and obviously the reputation of your business as well.
Mistake number five is:
That is basically trying to make a quick buck or a quick sale and not focusing on the quality or the service that you are delivering to your customer.
It's critical that you deliver great service. It's of utmost importance, especially in the world that we currently living and how competitive it is out there in the marketplace. If you are just chasing a quick buck and the quick sale and you're delivering poor quality services, your customers are not going to come back. You're going to lose those customers. You're going to lose repeat business there.
So, thinking short-term quick sale versus thinking long-term, building a relationship with that customer, delivering quality service, building a brand and reputation and not making the mistake of destroying that brand on reputation.
The sixth mistake is:
The trouble with that is the review platforms and the social platforms out there have algorithms today that are able to detect fake reviews.
If you're go in and log in using a particular account, they will track that,
and they can tell that that's a fake review.
What's worse is if your customers find out that you are posting up fake reviews or fake testimonials. What's that going to mean for your reputation and your your branding? It's not going to look really good.
So, it's critical that you don't post up fake reviews.
If you are struggling to get reviews and testimonials for your business, what can you do?
Try and make it easy for your customers to leave a review or to give you a testimonial. I worked with a client and we developed a series of questions, a questionnaire, that he was then able to send out to his customers that made it easy for them to leave a testimonial.
It was a series of questions, and based on the way that you answer it, allowed us to turn that questionnaire into a testimonial and a review.
So, don't post up fake reviews. If you can't get them, try to make it easy for your customers to do so, or go out and speak to your customers and get feedback from them. You might find certain things or certain problems within the delivery of your service and products that you could improve and then hopefully get a positive review from there.
And then, very lastly, mistake number seven is:
Especially for your business, your business pages, your business social media accounts are for business purposes.
It's not for you to post up anything controversial, anything that's politically-driven, any sensitive themes out there in the world.
Keep those maybe for your personal social media profiles. On your business profile and on your business pages, post things that are relevant and deliver value to your customers.
Don't be using it for for the wrong things.
And then also, don't just post things for the sake of posting things up. If you don't have value to deliver, then rather, stay away. Don't post anything until you have something of value to deliver because posting up a poor quality or just a random post that has nothing to do with the branding of your business and that's not related to your business could actually be hurting your business more than just trying to be relevant and up-to-date with posting on social media.
These are seven mistakes that I hope you will be avoiding as they can damage the reputation of your business. Rather, focus on adding value and building a long-term relationship and a long-term brand for your business.
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