Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a leading authority on business trends including reputation management, marketing automation and the social media revolution. He’s the author of the award-winning book “Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed” (Wiley, 2011) and a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. Recent developments in digital marketing have changed business opportunities forever. Not only can individual service providers (like self-employed service professionals) promote their services and cultivate followings of prospective clients but large corporations can develop followings of their own, creating enormous opportunities for growth and profit. The problem is that those same platforms (including Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, Pinterest and many others) can destroy followings just as quickly. Patrick breaks down the opportunities and risks with case histories and success stories, allowing your attendees to leave with real-world examples of what to do, and what to avoid.
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Recent speaking destinations include:
Business Speaker on Reputation Management
What is your online reputation? Is it good or bad? Before the Internet came along, these questions had no meaning. Meanwhile today, they spell success or failure for every business. Studies have repeatedly shown that customers appreciate online reviews and base their purchase decisions based on those reviews. Indeed, your online reputation is your greatest single asset in our increasingly online world. And as a result, reputation management has become job #1 for millions of self-employed professionals and business executives. In the early stages, reputation management can be implemented through tips and tricks online. But for the long run, it’s a matter of delivering great products or services, a great customer experience and an invitation to share those experiences in the public domain.
Keynote Speech: Online Reputation Management
Patrick builds all of his keynote programs on the Harvard Business School case history method. He is constantly researching the latest examples of online reputation management, both good and bad, and sharing them with audiences around the world. Every industry has platforms where reputations are built with customer referrals. Yelp is a great examples but there are countless industry-specific platforms as well, not to mention Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. In all cases, reviews from past customers are accumulated and shared in the public domain, allowing future prospects to adjust their buying decisions accordingly. While businesses can’t control the reviews that are posted on these various platforms, they can certainly control the customer experience and invite customers to share those experiences when they were positive.
Any sales training course will highlight the importance of a “call-to-action” and reputation management is no different. People need to be encouraged to share their experience. Without a call-to-action, many positive customer experiences will come and go without any reviews being posted. The process of identifying and harvesting those reviews requires a deliberate effort on the part of customer service personnel. It could be as simple as including a printed card with every purchase, pointing customers to the appropriate platform and inviting their feedback online. The result can be dramatic and immediately distinguish one business from it’s competitors.
Reputation Management for Bad Reviews
Reputation management is part of today’s success formula and business need to know how to react to both good reviews and bad ones. In either case, the top priority is to respond online. If the review is positive, thank the customer for sharing it. If the review is bad, tell your side of the story, NOT for the benefit of the reviewer but instead for all the future prospects who read that review down the road. Explain what you have done to address the concerns and how future customers can expect the situation to be handled. Don’t get angry! Admit the mistakes that took place and explain how they have been rectified. Believe it or not, bad reviews addressed properly can do as much to increase sales as positive reviews!
