The reputation shock
A 60-year-old English businessman who spent his entire working life building his reputation as a serious and notable businessman woke up one morning to find himself staring at his computer screen in disbelief. A longtime customer referred you to the search results of his chain of stores as they appeared on the first page of the Google search engine. Page after page, result after result: Website visitors were being discouraged from buying from any of their stores. The chain’s customer service was described as appalling and its business practices dishonest. 35 years of solid rock reputation have been tarnished literally overnight. Lie after lie, accusation after accusation. 3,4,5 different websites, all of which seemed to be dedicated to ruining his company and his reputation.
Dozens of netizens seemed to have left their comments on each of the tarnished websites. The stories were highly damaging and would likely gain offline media attention with chances of the articles appearing in national newspapers. This was the point where the veteran businessman had suddenly realized that the world had changed and that negative feedback from whoever it was could destroy a lifetime’s work almost overnight.
This somewhat old-fashioned successful businessman used to be in control his entire business life. Now it seems that he was no longer there. So he called his trusted attorney of the past 25 years, who admitted this was new territory for him, too. “Normal legal tools,” the lawyer said, “may not work in this case.” “In fact, normal legal tools could further exacerbate the situation,” the lawyer added. “This is the unknown land,” he told his client, “we have to tread carefully.”
Watch your back!
A client of my Internet law firm, a small international book publisher, woke up one morning to find that he had no reputation and no business. A competitor in what is already a difficult market had been running a negative campaign on his company for a few months with the goal of putting it out of business.
This case ended up in High Court where, despite what the judge said, my client was left with a tarnished reputation that, in effect, blocked any further attempt by her to return to the same line of business.
So what does this mean for you?
They say that on average 1 in 5 satisfied customers will speak highly of you to a friend or relative, perhaps earning you business this way. 1 dissatisfied customer, on the other hand, will tell 5-10 people about their bad experience, which means bad news travels much faster than good news. No matter how much effort you put into good public relations with your customers and employees, one bad experience can ruin everything. Can you do something about it? Sure! Here’s what to do: As a starting point, follow these 3 steps. They will reduce the risk of online damage to your reputation.
They are also general good business practices, so don’t delay and start implementing them now. The 3 steps you must follow are:
Prevention
listening
influencing
Prevention:
Learn to treasure complaints. You don’t need an Internet lawyer to tell you how important it is for you to respond to complaints quickly and avoid delays. Follow each complaint with the goal of satisfying your customer’s anger and frustrations. It is a fact of life that complaints stay in the family for a very short time and if they are not resolved in time, there is a risk that any complaint ends up being exposed to the entire world. Never be defensive. If you’re wrong, just admit it and make amends.
Initially, all your dissatisfied customer wants is for you to fix things. Later on, your client’s goals may change and revenge may become his new desire. By now, you may have lost control of the entire situation, leaving you valuable to online attacks on your reputation.
Listening:
Read and listen to what your customers say about you. Search the Internet for your business name and brand using the normal Google search engine, as well as Google Blog Search or any other free search tool available online. This will reveal many of the blogs and discussion groups where your company name has been mentioned. This is what your customers will see when they search for your business. Hopefully, you won’t find anything alarming, and if so, you should continue to monitor these websites and discussion groups.
But if you find unpleasant comments, it’s still not the end of the world and there’s a lot you can do to make amends.
Influencing:
In fact, you can influence what your customers see when they search for your business online. Try to get involved in online discussions and post articles and comments online using various methods such as blogs, discussion group websites, and more. Any time you come across negative comments about your company, join the discussion by introducing yourself and try to make things right. Don’t just stand away and hope this will just go away because it won’t. If you think the situation is getting a bit out of hand, seek the advice of Internet law experts. Internet lawyers provide constant monitoring of your reputation and offer good practical advice on how to form a strategy to combat online attacks on your reputation and how to protect your online reputation through the courts of law.
There are other companies that offer tools that aim to remove unsightly web pages from the first page of Google Search, but using those companies should be your last resort because they are not cheap and in some cases tend to require a monitoring and long-term management. .
An Internet law expert can also help you manage your online reputation by using serious legal tools that have been proven time and time again to be extremely effective.