Reputation Management

As reputation is becoming increasingly important and with its volatile nature there has been a rise in awareness in its management. There are now specific companies that can be paid to manage reputation or rebuild from a scandal and prevent it from happening in the future. As reputation is an intangible it is difficult to judge its importance and with the internet and digital media information flows very quick, what would take hours to pass around can be done in a blink of an eye to thousands. Bad feedback and word of mouth, react poorly to scandal and a company being viewed as "shady" or attempting to hide or twist the truth. to measure the importance of reputation business in focus magazine tells us 1.Ethics: the organization behaves ethically, is admirable, is worthy of respect, and is trustworthy. 2.Employees/workplace: the organization has talented employees, treats its people well, and is an appealing workplace. 3.Financial performance: the organization is financially strong, has a record of profitability, and has growth prospects. 4.Leadership: the organization is a leader rather than a follower, and is innovative. 5.Management: the organization is well managed, has high quality management, and has a clear vision for the future. 6.Social responsibility: the organization recognizes social responsibilities, and supports good causes. 7.Customer focus: the organization cares about and is strongly committed to customers. 8.Quality: the organization offers high quality products and services. 9.Reliability: the organization stands behind its products and services, and provides consistent service. 10.Emotional appeal: it is an organization I feel good about, is kind, and is fun. This has to be measured to see in which areas can be improved to hopefully improve reputation and therefore have this lead to increased profit. Digital media has again changed how reputation management, a very popular and useful tool is Google alerts. This informs the company when they are mentioned online , this means the company can see what is being said about them both positively and negatively so reaction can be quicker- this is especially important with digital media speeding the process up. Social media pages for the specific company can be used in the same way. This has become more and more important as there is far more purchasing online in this day and age and this is likely to be reduced if the company has a reputation of for example not delivering on time or not delivering at all then the person e-mails or enters a live chat and receives poor customer service. The individual then posts this on Facebook for a large audience which in turn convinces them not to choose that company in future purchases.


http://www.businessinfocusmagazine.com/2012/10/the-importance-of-business-reputation/