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May 02, 2008
Reputation management
The previous posting illustrated one way of protecting a company's reputation: a proactive approach to getting ahead of problems. There are other tools as well. One is better communications -- as a number of companies have found out. Telling the world about your corporate values and what you do turns out to make good financial sense (see earlier posting.)
Then there is the PR approach. This way relies on what has become to be call "reputation management." Companies can hire services that monitor the Internet and other media for complaints and comments (see earlier posting). But, as Business Week (Do Reputation Management Services Work?) points out:
It's still hard to say how companies are using reputation management services, but industry players say clients fall into two camps. Some want to understand and respond to customer complaints; others often just want negative posts to go away. "The majority of inquiries that I get are from people who are looking to do a cover-up," says Andy Beal, a marketing consultant and co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. "They're not necessarily interested in trying to fix the problem. They just want to make sure that other people can't find it."
Again, same point as before. For a brand to have value, it has to be backed by something that customers want. Trying to simply hide the bad stuff may work for awhile. But eventually you have to produce the good stuff if you are to survive.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at May 2, 2008 10:39 AM
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