Reputation management problems can arrive suddenly and without warning. Here are three strategies that can make them worse.
Faking reviews – Faking reviews, also known as astroturfing, is a common reaction to seeing a bad review on Yelp or other social media sites as the company or hired third party starts posting a raft of fawning reviews to dilute the genuine post. This strategy, first of all, is easy for people who use review sites to detect, especially if the rate of submitted reviews accelerates substantially after a negative post surfaces. The same mis-spellings of words that are present in multiple reviews are also a dead giveaway. In addition to not fooling the users, the administrators of review sites are becoming more sophisticated in detecting astroturfing campaigns and will call out businesses by posting a notice that fake reviews are being used to artificially boost the ratings of offending companies. If astroturfing a bad review or two sounds tempting, remember that being called out as a fake will likely be far more damaging than a couple of random reviews.
Hiding – Hiding from and ignoring reputation management problems tend to deliver the same results, which can include the perception that the company has no idea how to handle the situation at hand, is completely out of touch, or simply does not care. While these perceptions can be damaging to the company’s reputation, allowing an issue to spin completely out of control can be devastating. Without guidance from a business that is the focus of a reputation management crisis, the scope of a problematic issue can grow far beyond the facts as the public takes increasingly drastic efforts to elicit a response. While dealing with a crisis may be uncomfortable and difficult, always remember that major problems rarely go away by being neglected.
Obfuscating – Trying to diffuse a reputation management issue with vague or confusing language rarely works, and often infuriates people enough that they decide to get to the bottom of the issue on their own. If you’ve ever seen an interview with a company spokesperson whose answers have nothing to do with the questions being posed, you have an idea of how insulting this practice can be. Instead, when addressing any type of reputation management problem, speaking clearly, directly and honestly will provide a much better outcome than being seen as condescending to a public that hopefully doesn’t get it.
Problems that challenge your business’ reputation can come from any direction. When an issue surfaces, authenticity, honesty, and accountability will provide a much better defense than hoping things get better or trying to take deceptive shortcuts.
