Every entrepreneur wants to make sure that his or her business bears the best reputation. Although it may sound quite an easy idea, practically it takes a lot of effort to build and maintain a positive image of a company.
What Is Business Reputation?
You already know how your business appears to you, and how you feel about it. But it does not mean that others experience the same. A business reputation consists of what others feel, perceive and think about your business. This opinion is built upon the opinion they hear and their own experiences with your business. More importantly, this experience exists both online and offline.
So if you are considering to improve the reputation of your business, here are a few steps that you can consider taking:
1. Place Your Best Face Forward!
While showing your best side to the world encourages them to talk to you and take a good impression. That being said dressing well, staying polite, treating people well and remaining positive. You never know who is going to watch you. So always show your positive side and remain positive.
2. Deliver What You Promise
Staying truthful is most important in maintaining a good reputation for your business or entrepreneurial venture. If you commit to one thing, do everything it takes to keep your words- and make sure you don’t back out at the last minute. If anything arises to keep you from fulfilling your commitment, delegate task to someone as good as you do the job. You don’t want others to think about you as a flake.
3. Make Sure You Communicate Effectively And More Often
Keeping your employees in the loop is the best practice to build trust and a good reputation within your company. Despite there is no important development in the client’s project, make sure you inform your employees through regular updates every few days.
4. Build A Quality Website:
Your website is your first impression on clients, and it should be good and effective. Setting up a website means that you are taking initial steps towards building a reputation for your business. Hire professionals and ensure your website is quality assured from every aspect. As well as it must tell your clients about you and your products or services. Give correct and complete information to them to contact you and respond to them in a timely fashion. Don’t forget to make it mobile friendly for the growing smartphone user base!
5. Strengthen Social Media Presence
This is the era of businesses engaging with their customers through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. As people interact in a direct and open away to your business through these channels, make sure you build effective and interactive social media pages of your business. In many cases, these channels are considered to be the first medium for people to interact with businesses. So, let people know that you exist in social media channels too, and encourage them to ask questions and comment about your businesses. Moreover, this also helps you in understanding your potential customers well.
6. Avoid Spamming!
No one likes spamming and it could ruin your company’s reputation if you partake in this potentially illegal activity. This is more important when you have an email subscription list. You may feel tempted to send out emails to your subscribers as soon as anything happens. But in reality, it annoys people who get too many emails from businesses. So it is advisable to limit your emails to once per week, if you have committed to your customers otherwise, send them emails accordingly. While at the same time you would want to ensure that your customers are kept engaged and updated about your business.
7. Ask Your Clients And Customers About Feedback
Unless you ask them to give their review on your business, products, and services they would not feel confident and open about your business. So you must encourage feedback which consists of both positive and negatives. Work on their concerns as it will help you in improving your reputation.
You can build a testimonial page on your website and recommendations section on social media channels. Despite they give their opinions on social media channels, it is still important to make their reviews available on your website.
8. Respond To Their Feedback
When a customer or client gives feedback, make sure you respond to them individually. Be thankful for positive feedback while working with complaints and negative feedback. Analyze their opinions and reviews and ask if their opinion is valid, if yes work on them to fix those problems. Also, ask their suggestions to fix the problem.
9. Address Rumors
If someone is spreading rumors about your business, address them immediately. Don’t sit back and wait that these rumors will settle. You must work actively and let people know that these rumors are false. But make sure you do it in a positive manner. This way you paint yourself and your business as more professional and positive.
Although, one cannot be a 100% perfect every time, however, by taking these steps you can improve your businesses’ reputation.