Your reputation creates or destroys sales.
What’s yours?
With the onslaught of social media, good and bad actions and comments relating to quality of product, quality of service, and quality of experience are at the forefront of corporate awareness.
Many companies are reluctant to get into social media for fear customers will say or post negative things about them.
REALITY: Those companies and their leaders are “socially” unaware that the customer is going to post those feelings anyway.
WORSE REALITY: Many companies are under the influence of shallow lawyers warning executives that the sky is falling if someone tweets.
WORST REALITY: Even more ridiculous are the companies that “forbid” the use of social media at work based on the fear their employees will waste their time searching for their old high school romance.
NEWS ALERTS: Social media – or business social media (as I prefer to refer to it) – is now a mainstay. The floodgates of social freedom are reshaping the world and at the same time reshaping – or at least redefining – your company, your product, your service, and your people through the voice of your customers.
And social media, when combined with word-of-mouth advertising and stories that may appear online or in print, determines your fate and your future. All of that combines to equal YOUR REPUTATION.
Another way of looking at, or defining, reputation is the state, or status, of “becoming known as” or “becoming known for” something.
- Become known for doing everything you said you would do – on time or sooner. To have any prayer for a reputation you must be known as a person who does, and delivers, what you promise. Without this fundamental element, don’t bother to read the rest.
- Become known for being easy to do business with, and be friendly while you are doing it. Customers expect everything and they expect it when they need it – not just when you can offer it. You have to be friendly when you are there and friendly when you are not there. This means easily accessible by telephone and easy accessible by Internet.
- Become known for being proactively remarkable. When you stand out from other vendors, you will be talked about, and earning a reputation (and a testimonial) will be simple. Being remarkable means going the extra mile and making service the forefront of your business, not an add on.
