Always respond to your customers

One of the services we offer here at Indazo is Online Reputation Management. When a crisis occurs online, swift action is needed to ensure the damage is limited. Bad press and negative publicity can cause serious damage to a company and its brand. For this reason, reputation management is an important service that any companies budget for. In today’s world of global commerce and internet business, it is more important than ever to have the right help when these serious situations occur.

Although professional reputation management services use a variety of techniques and communications, there is one simple action you and your employees can take on a daily basis which will make a huge and positive difference to how your business is perceived by customers. Simply, always respond to your customers.

This is an area where we consistently see problems arising. A significant percentage of reputation management issues could have been resolved very quickly if customers had been responded to quickly and appropriately.

If a customer has taken the time to write to you or get in touch, the worst thing you can do is ignore them. Communications from customers tend to be questions, requests for information or assistance, thanks or complaints. All of these reasons, and any others, require a prompt, appropriate and professional response. Even ignoring a compliment and not acknowledging it can result in an unhappy customer. And unhappy customers will result in a drop in sales.

Make sure you have a formal procedure and process so that all customer enquiries, via the website, email, post or in person, are properly logged. Logging enquiries is the best way to track responses and make sure everyone has been dealt with. It may seem like additional administration that uses up precious time, but it will help you to develop an excellent customer service procedure that will ultimately be praised.

Online, this can be done by building a simple database which lists the customer, the enquiry, the date it came in, the response and the date the response was given. It is also worth recording how the enquiry came in, whether via email, website form or on social media.

In commercial business, the level of a company’s responsiveness to customers has a direct correlation with its success in sales and perceived value of the brand. Don’t be afraid to push your team and make sure they give the very best service to customers at all times. Online this includes the content that is posted, emails, and order processing.

Think about how important good feedback is for sellers on EBay, and how damaging a spate of negative comments can be to a seller’s reputation. It is exactly the same for any business online.

Hopefully, if you follow this one simple tip, you will head off problems before they occur.