Austrian born and raised, reading Heinrich Böll’s “The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum” (1974) was standard fare in school. The great humanist Böll understood his novel as pamphlet against tabloid journalism ruining lives with their bold lies, and it made a strong impression on me at a time still yearning for justice like many teenagers do.

I wonder when and how harassment and defamation via social networks will find a comparable artistic expression?

Then and now, no law can make up for the damage done. That is the crux with reputation: hard to build and easy to destroy, once lost, oh my, even harder to rebuild.

Protect your brand – get proactive!

While private persons quite certainly will be taken by surprise by online campaigns against them and they will find themselves fighting against windmills, companies are well aware of the dangers negative online reviews carry for their business. As social media becomes more prevalent, reputation management becomes increasingly important. Bad news spread faster than ever, and consumers give more importance to what their fellow consumers experienced with a brand.

Lisa Barone, yes it is our second time that she caught our attention (see Release your Website’s Inner Animal), published last month 15 Ways to Avoid Bad Online Reviews. In it, she provides very helpful tips of how to be proactive in order to prevent online reputation disasters.

Lisa’s message is twofold:
First know what is said about you. Be where your customers are, constantly monitor social networks, and if you detect negative online reviews react in a suitable and honest way.

Second and even more important, don’t let the disappointment of your customers leak into the social networks! Offer a communication channel on your site that will become the first platform for your customers to express themselves. Consumers nowadays are faster than ever expressing their opinion, it something that became integral part of their surfing. The new online consumer is “coded to share”, and if your company provides such a channel, you have good chances that the negative feedback will remain private – just between you and your customer.

Keep your dirty laundry in the family!

Oh, did I say feedback? Yes, I did. Kampyle’s feedback solution is a great tool for directing the anger and frustration of a customer first of all to your own internal stakeholders, “to keep it in the family”. And if you know how to react fast to this feedback, you might just have saved your company from a disastrous review.

Making your customers happy is time consuming and comes with a price. But there is more to win, than only avoiding bad reviews. What I can share from the experience of the companies using Kampyle: There is no better and loyal customer than the one that you managed to turn his/her frustration into a pleasant customer experience!

About the author

Dr. Ursula Ron joined Kampyle in spring 2011 as marketing manager. She is old enough to remember the time only a selected bunch of people had an email address and Altavista was THE search engine.

You can follow Ursula on Facebook, Twitter @ronursula or LinkedIn.

If you are into online chess, don’t hesitate to challenge her.

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