In the present days of digital advancement, the Online Reputation of any Ecommerce Business is vital to its survival. A consumer’s trust and confidence has a profound effect on the company’s bottom line. It is very important to maintain the reputation as the business of a company is at stake. Even so called ecommerce giants have to monitor the reviews and responses of consumers about their products and services to maintain their brand reputation and the standings of their companies around the world. In the past years, the reputation was built and maintained solely on the word of the mouth of their stake holders. In this new era of social networking, businesses must be conscious regarding their reputation as the websites and instant communication can cause a lot of damage to the reputation which inevitably affect the business.
The companies need to monitor on a regular basis and should be responsive to avert crisis whenever required. Having a good reputation for the company helps the business in multiple ways like consumer preference, future value of the company and the support during a crisis or controversy. However, bad reputation of the company has the potential to bring down the company within in no time.
How does a company gain bad reputation?
The most basic thing that effects a company’s reputation is a review. It can be either positive or negative but a review is capable of changing the market game of your company. There are review sites literally for every business in the market and they have customers talking and discussing about the services and products offered by the companies. So a negative review can spread easily and can damage the reputation of your company. Hence, it is important to learn how to properly respond to negative reviews.
A bad review of a restaurant can reduce its revenue noticeably and it is pretty evident that restaurants with good reviews have more revenue in comparison to bad reviewed restaurants. Studies prove that, the revenue is manipulated a lot based on the reviews and with the social media being easily accessible and convenient, the bad reviews spread faster than the positive reviews. This is how a company gains bad reputation that can eventually affect the business.
The effects of Bad reputation and Negative Publicity:
Loss of Trust:
Bad publicity can be a by-product of an exposed lie or inaccurate rumours. Advertising is usually done to pump up the businesses’ expectations in the public (consumers). In the process of advertising, the companies might end up giving false hopes that might be difficult to fulfil. This leads to mistrust of the consumers, employees and potential customers. It is a time-consuming process to gain back the trust once it is lost and can be difficult. The mistrust as a result of social media exposure can take several months or even years to be rectified. It is only possible by large number of vocal supporters that can outnumber the critics and gain back the lost trust.
Effects on Sales:
Negative publicity has a negative impact on the sales; there is no doubt in that. Few virtually unknown companies can experience boom in the business due to negative publicity as they come into the limelight out of nowhere. But a big and well known company can be destroyed in the long run due to negative publicity. It also affects the potential customer’s willingness to associate with your business as it has bad reviews all over the internet.
Damaged Brand Equity:
Negative publicity can damage the Brand equity in long-term. This especially affects the businesses of the companies that must recall their products based on safety issues or for them being health hazards. Buyers are likely to avoid a product if it’s been recalled although only a small portion of the stock has issues. Buyers end up avoiding the particular brand for several days until the situation is diluted and discarded. Rumours with no merit strongly affects the sales, this can be a major problem to the companies facing it. Brand equity is nothing but the commercial value that is derived from the consumer’s perspective and it should never be damaged for a smooth running business.
Damaged Brand Association:
A brand sometimes has more value than the company itself! The brand value decides the attitude and feelings of a customer towards the product or company. Bad publicity obviously contributes towards the diminishing of the brand value and yes, it reduces sales over time.
It is a costly and time taking affair to gain back the brand value that has been lost due to negative publicity and the company will be forced to indulge in additional advertising and campaigns that can alter the damage caused by negative publicity. The damaged brand value is a boon for the competitors and they will not leave the opportunity to divert the customer base in their favour which inevitably reduces your company’s sales.
There are a number of services being provided towards the betterment of the reputation of your product/company.
Online Reputation Management:
Reputation management experts deal with everything related to the company’s brand value in the online community. This community comprises of search engines, online forums, blogs, and of course, social media. They also make use of modern technology like LOT tracking software where they can trace if the products delivered by the company are reaching the clients on time and that the inventory is always updated as this has a great impact on the reputation of the company.
Online reputation management companies can be consulted to build a proper and legit reputation for your company through social media and correct marketing strategies. There a number of online reputation management services that work using SEO (search engine optimization) so that the work done is efficient and worth the effort.
Conclusion –
Reputation of company has become as important as the service or the product’s quality that is being offered. A negative reputation can damage the company’s sales and this problem can be sorted out with the help of online Reputation management services that are available in the market.
