April 28, 2023

Successful Reputation Management Starts with Building a Solid Digital Foundation

About Jamie Frankel:

Title
Director of Revenue Enablement and Solutions Consulting, ReviewTrackers

Fun fact
I love to cook and am known amongst my friends as “Chef Jamie.” Some of my specialties include soft pretzels and meatloaf.

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Meet Jamie

Jamie Frankel is the Director of Revenue Enablement and Solutions Consulting at ReviewTrackers. 

She partners with sales executives to drive customer-focused and value-based strategies to help accelerate sales. 

Recently, Jamie served as the guest speaker in a special InMoment-ReviewTrackers webinar where she discussed how to develop a brand reputation strategy and shared best practices for managing your brand reputation in an ever-changing marketplace.

What’s a fun fact about you that most people don't know?

I love to cook and am known amongst my friends as “Chef Jamie.” Some of my specialties include soft pretzels and meatloaf.

Why is reputation management important?

As a practice, reputation management helps you understand your customers, prioritize improvements, reduce customer churn, and provide exceptional customer experiences.

It also helps your organization know what customers think and feel. Reputation management strategies let you know what customers are saying whenever they comment on your brand (whether it’s on Google or Facebook, etc.) so that you can be aware of positive and negative interactions. 

Find out your brand's online reputation score

Take the guesswork out of your strategy. Instantly generate your brand's online Reputation Scorecard, complete with review highlights, ratings, keyword trends and more.

How do brands get started with reputation management?

The first step is to build a strong foundation. This involves:

  • Claiming your local listings. Not only does local listing management improve your brand’s foothold; but it also makes it easier for your team to see what people are saying about your brand. 
  • Setting up review management. Online review management is the business process of monitoring, analyzing, responding to, and generating customer reviews across multiple business review sites.
  • Engaging in social search. Engage with customers outside of reviews by monitoring what they’re saying on social media, ideally with a social listening tool. 

How do brands know where their business is being reviewed?

The most effective way to find out where your brand has customer reviews is to deploy a local listing management solution. This typically involves submitting your location data — primarily, your business name and address — and, from there, working with the solutions provider to programmatically crawl all relevant review sites, listings pages, and business directories.

Why is responding to reviews important?

Not only are customers more likely to visit a business that responds to reviews; customers are expecting responses. They want to engage with the businesses they’re interacting with.

You can think of review responses this way: for example, I picked up the phone or walked into a business and talked to a manager and gave them my candid feedback. I never would want a manager to just walk away, right? At the very least, companies should thank customers for the feedback or say, “We’re sorry you had a problem” — then figure out ways to resolve this problem.

How do reviews improve brand reputation and attract buyers?

Reviews certainly help attract and influence new buyers. 

Personally, I think about reviews all the time when I’m going on a vacation, visiting a new city, or finding a place to meet a friend in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Consumers are constantly looking at reviews day in and day out to make decisions. 

According to research, 93% of consumers check Google reviews before visiting a business. It’s paramount for brands to take action on this data and actively manage their reviews and reputation.

google is the top site for business reviews

What’s an underrated reputation management tactic that marketers must learn?

Brands can use marketing reviews on their website to drive consumer trust and provide social proof. This ensures that potential customers have access to the right information that will guide their purchase decisions. 

Using a website review widget, brands can display online reviews on their website, with the goal of converting visitors into new customers. Using a review widget for your website also helps your brand stand out from the competition, while potentially improving your search performance and visibility in search engines. 

Simply put: consumers are more likely to trust content created by fellow consumers than promotional brand content. Sharing reviews on your website also means you get to publicly show appreciation for customers who supported your company with their reviews.