A Comprehensive Guide to Reputation Management

The popularity of the internet has changed the way people make purchasing decisions. With consumers having unprecedented access to information, your brand’s reputation—shaped largely by what others say about it—plays a crucial role.

What Is Reputation Management?

In essence, reputation management—also known as online reputation management, ORM— involves creating and maintaining a positive online presence. This includes encouraging satisfied customers to share their experiences online, enhancing your social proof, and making new prospects more likely to trust you.

However, SEOreputation management goes beyond just interacting with people that talk about your brand online. To get a grip on it, you need to evaluate every facet of your online brand and strategically work towards building a compelling reputation.

• Encouraging customers to leave reviews of your brand

• Responding to all customer feedback—even if it just a star rating

• Celebrating positive reviews online, in-store, and on social media sites

• Seeking resolutions for negative reviews (and share proofs)

• Using feedback to improve your product, services, or customer support

• Maintaining a consistent brand voice in every customer interaction

In fact, a solid reputation management strategy can significantly influence your business's success (or failure).

The Relationship Between Reputation Management and Review Management

Review management is a critical component of your overall reputation management strategy, and overall marketing strategies—so really ‘just’ one part of it. But since reviews are one of the first pieces of information people read when making buying decisions, review management should be a primary focus area of your reputation management strategy. It involves monitoring, responding to, and leveraging reviews to improve customer experiences and boost your online visibility.

Effective review management helps you understand customer perceptions, identify areas for improvement, and enhance your performance in search engine results. This visibility, in turn, can directly impact your revenue.

How Reputation Management Impacts Revenue

When you take the time to read reviews and reply accordingly, you are increasing your chances of being found in a local search, and have a better chance of winning new customers. Therefore, reputation management has a direct impact on your revenue streams.

Our reputation management report shows that increasing your star rating by 0.1 stars could lead to a 25% improvement in conversion rates. Small business owners or marketers who respond to 32% of reviews have a 40% higher conversion rate than those who don’t. Achieving a 3.7-star rating offers the highest growth potential, with 4.9 stars being the peak conversion rate for all businesses.

However, devising a winning reputation management strategy needs careful planning. It also needs considerations for tools needed to track reviews, and respond promptly and in a uniform brand voice.

Why Reputation Management Matters

Reputation management helps build a trust-based relationship with potential customers by highlighting your reliability, the quality of your products and services, and the positive experiences you've provided to others.

Effective reputation management helps you harness the power of these reviews to attract more customers—which is why reputation management is more important today than ever. Brightlocal's Review Study 2024 found:

• 75% of consumers ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ read online reviews.

• 77% of consumers use at least two review platforms in their business research.

• 91% of consumers say reviews impact their overall perceptions of big brands.

• 71% of consumers would not consider using a business with an average rating below three stars.

• 59% of consumers expect a business to have between 20-99 reviews.

• 69% of consumers would feel positive about using a business if its written reviews describe positive experiences.

• 93% of consumers would expect a business to respond to their reviews.

In fact, each positive review enhances your eWOM, which has a broader reach than traditional word-of-mouth advertising. On the flip side, one negative review could potentially cost you 22% of your business, particularly if the review is on the first page of search results.

So if you’re not actively developing and investing in your reputation management strategy, you could be missing out not only on building positive word of mouth but also risk losing new business opportunities. And did you know that reputation management is a key measure for search engine optimization (SEO), too?

The Evolution of Reputation Management

Offering great products and services is no longer enough—because online reviews are a key way for businesses to reach prospective customers. With nearly 70% of internet searches being local, reviews on sites like Google, TripAdvisor and Yelp are crucial in attracting local customers.

While consumers read reviews more often, they also increasingly write reviews themselves—especially those aged 25 to 34—on platforms like Yelp, Google, Yahoo, Angi, and OpenTable to share their experiences. So the volume of online reviews is expanding rapidly, along with the importance of reputation management.

Reputation Management Best Practices

A solid reputation management strategy begins with strong review management; so this is what we’re focusing on with our 8-step-plan.

#1 Respond to Both Good and Bad Reviews

It’s tempting to reply only to positive reviews and ignore the negative ones—or worse, respond defensively and without empathy. However, as a business, you should respond to all reviews, whether they are positive, negative, neutral, or even simple star ratings.

Ignoring a bad review leaves potential customers with the impression that you don’t care about your service. Moreover, addressing negative reviews and attempting to resolve the issues can boost your business, as 34% of young customers are willing to change their bad reviews if the business works with them to fix the reported problem. Even if you can’t find a solution, attempting to work with a dissatisfied customer demonstrates your commitment to good service.

#2 Encourage Reviews

Since online reviews significantly impact your business, encourage customers to rate and review you online. For example, you could include a link to an online survey at the end of digital interactions (such as transaction emails); or have your staff remind customers to rate and review your business.

Once reviews come in, ensure you respond to each of them, even if they are just star ratings without text. A higher response rate improves your searchability online.

#3 Nurture Your Star Rating

Many customers leave star ratings without detailed feedback. Responding to these ratings is a great opportunity to improve your response rates. Globally, companies have an average response rate of 25% for smaller brands and 12% for larger brands. Aim higher, and watch your star ratings improve.

Avoid sounding insincere with standard responses like ‘Thank You’ or ‘Come back soon’ for every rating. To manage a large number of reviews, use review management tools like Uberall with clever automation, custom templates, and in-flow recommendations.

#4 Maintain Your Brand Voice

While using templates to respond to reviews, ensure you maintain a consistent brand voice and tone across all communications.

If you’re a national brand, provide your local teams with adequate training, templates, and assistance to respond to reviews consistently. Investment in tools and training pay as part of your reputation management pay off, ensuring your brand voice is consistent.

#5 Encourage Return Visits

A primary goal of reputation management is to encourage customer loyalty, which is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. So use your reputation management strategy to nurture relationships and keep customers coming back. This can be achieved by responding to reviews, being active on local social channels, and encouraging online feedback from current customers.

#6 Prioritize Relationship Building

When someone leaves a negative review, write a helpful and timely response to ensure they feel heard. Reaching out quickly to resolve the issue can help customers feel better. Be empathetic when responding to negative reviews. For complex issues, offer to resolve them offline through a phone call or email. Ensure such processes are part of your reputation management strategy.

#7 Use Sentiment Analysis

Incorporate sentiment analysis into your reputation management strategy to identify positive and negative trends in your online reviews. This information can help you address areas in your business that customers want to change and retain the aspects they appreciate.

If negative trends consistently appear, address them promptly. With the right tools, you can analyze all review platforms to get a comprehensive understanding of customer issues and resolve them before they escalate.

#8 Protect Your Brand

Ensure no one is damaging your brand identity online. If someone is leaving malicious reviews, spreading misinformation, or causing misconceptions about your business, it can harm your brand.

As part of your reputation management strategy, monitor for these reviews and address them before they cause damage. Flag and report fake reviews to see if the review site will remove them, and correct any misinformation.

Deep Dive: Responding to Reviews

A successful reputation management strategy hinges on timely and appropriate responses to reviews. Templates can help you respond consistently and efficiently; but personalizing your responses does the trick!

Handling Negative Reviews

When responding to negative reviews, stay calm and avoid taking them personally. Read the review thoroughly, acknowledge the issue, and offer a solution.

If the review violates platform terms, flag it for removal. If the feedback is valid, apologize and provide contact information for further resolution.

Improving Response Rates

Automate your responses with intelligent tools to save time and ensure consistency. Use review templates for different scenarios and personalize them to enhance your engagement.

Pitfall: Review Gating

Review gating is the practice of selectively soliciting customer feedback based on their initial experience, where only those who report positive experiences are encouraged to leave public reviews.

You boost your star rating, new customers see a list of glowing reviews, and your reputation is pristine. But this tactic is a form of manipulation. In fact, it’s penalized by review platforms, though, and can lead to fines while customers may also become suspicious of overly positive reviews.

Special Case: Fake Reviews

Review fraud ranges from buying positive reviews from vendors to actively posting false negative reviews on a competitor's listing. But using bots or paying for fake reviews is unethical and can damage your credibility, too.

About 10% of Google reviews and 7% of Yelp reviews are fake. But platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook are cracking down on fake reviews, which can harm your brand's reputation.

Review Management Software: Buyer’s Guide

If you’re ready to deploy your reputation management strategy, the right review management software can help you. Look for these features:

• Integration with popular review sites

• Centralized inbox and in-app responses

• Monitoring and reporting

Customer Spotlight: How Top Brands Leverage Uberall for Success

KFC has enhanced its review management by utilizing Uberall's AI-driven assistant to respond to 39% of textless reviews, alongside a library of automated and manual responses tailored to various customer concerns. Together with other local SEO initiatives, this resulted in a 37:1 ROI.

Barcelo Hotel Group saw their average review rating rise from 4.5 in 2022 to 4.6 in 2023, alongside significant time savings for their team through automated review responses via Uberall. Additionally, they experienced a 10% increase in the average number of reviews from satisfied customers compared to the previous year.

Brose implemented a systematic approach to manage online reviews effectively. They automated responses for 4- and 5-star reviews without text using predefined templates in multiple languages and handled 1-star reviews manually to address complex feedback thoughtfully. The results are an increased visibility in Google Search and Maps, and more clicks on their Google Business Profiles.

All in all, reputation management is a powerful tool to build trust, improve customer loyalty, and drive revenue. By actively managing your online presence and engaging with customer feedback, you can create a compelling reputation that stands out in the competitive digital landscape. Embrace the above best practices (and tools) to watch your business thrive.