Reputation Management Begins Before You Start

It's altogether too easy for online business owners to ignore reputation management. That is, until it becomes necessary. By then, it has become a much larger problem than it would have been if they had started from the beginning.

In the beginning, it's a relatively minor process. You start with the question of how you want to be perceived. Before your first product launches, you will want to have achieved at least the first few stages of reputation management.

After you have developed your image, you will want various elements in place to assist your reputation management. You will want support staff in place, unless you really feel like answering hundreds, if not thousands of support requests per day.

It will also be important for your reputation management to have a tech support department staffed. Depending on your company's size, it could be as few as one or two people, or enough to fill an office. The point is to be able to show follow through on the support questions.

It will probably also be in the best interest of your reputation management to have giveaways to hand out to people who contact your support staff. Everyone likes free stuff, and this can often defuse what could become an ugly situation for your company.

Aside from customer complaints, you will also have to deal with employee morale as part of your reputation management. Few things can be more damaging to a company than a disgruntled staff member complaining on a public forum or going to a complaint oriented website. Complaint policies and procedures should be in place if you expect to keep a lid on this sort of thing. Make no mistake, some people will complain just because they have to work.

Of course, how you conduct yourself on the Internet goes a long way toward reputation management. There is a particular art to knowing which complaints need to be addressed and which ones need to be buried. It could be a legitimate complaint, or it may be your competition slinging mud at you.

For that matter, it is in your best interest for reputation management to duly compensate those who support you. You may find at one point that your company has an "evangelist" in a blog community or another. You should encourage that, and perhaps give them bonuses or even put them on the payroll.

It is not enough for reputation management to read the classics on the subject. While it is helpful to be educated in Macchiavelli, Sun-Tsu and Gracian, as well as the more modern business professionals, there is one essential skill that is best suited to all business owners. That is the ability to delegate.

Being able to turn over aspects of your business to others, whether you're hiring "in house" or if you're outsourcing, is a vital skill. While you don't want to delegate yourself out of a job, you really don't want your hand in everything. This is where a good
search engine marketing firm comes into play for your online ventures.

For more information, contact us at www.directhorizon.com.