June 7, 2010

Customer Reviews Set Consumer Expectations

Expectations of your business will literally shape the whole consumer experience for your customers.   This is nothing new. In my post, “Social Media – It’s a Moral Imperative” I wrote about how a movie’s marketing campaign painted an unrealistic expectation of being a comedy – and then delivered scenes of horrific violence and very little “humor”.

The same is true of your business.  Marketing sets expectations.  If you deliver on the promises – if expectations are met – then consumers will be satisfied.  Fail to deliver – and consumers will complain.

While this is nothing new – what is new is that we’re living in a world where communication is lightning fast and ridiculously easy thanks to social media.   This creates a world where your consumer’s unmet expectations (realistic or not) can mean an avalanche of negative online reviews .

Setting realistic expectations of your products and services is essential to your business survival.

I’m seeing a worrisome trend – one which is not only being recommended by various “gurus” but also being practiced by business owners who obviously are not aware of the danger involved.

Many businesses – big and small – are engaging in creating their own “reviews” for their business. One popular info product recommends  this course of action – especially if customers aren’t online actively participating in online reviews.  This popular resource recommends that SEO professionals and business owners go out and actively create the reviews they “know their business deserves” by leaving reviews under pseudonyms.

Here’s the hidden danger with this troubling trend.

Let’s say you’re a physician concerned about your online reputation.  You hire someone to  create 5 star reviews for your practice.  Those fictitious reviews are prominently displayed in your local search listing.

Your multiple reviews make your local search listing tops with Google maps and this begins bringing new patients to your office.  These patients are expecting 5 star service because – after all – that’s what it looks like others have been saying about your medical practice. They’re expecting short waits in the waiting room, they’re expecting considerate, competent staff – they’re expecting the doctor to have a great bedside manner – but when they arrive – that’s not what they get.

Perhaps a “real” review of your office wouldn’t have given your practice five stars on every options.  Perhaps a real patient would have rated your office wait time as “moderate” – but real patients didn’t write those reviews so the new patients who came to your office – expecting a brief stay in the waiting room are now fuming as the minutes tick by and they still haven’t been seen.

Trust me when I tell you…

The online review of the consumer who has been disappointed will be far worse than the authentic review of a dissatisfied consumer.

I’ve observed what seems to be a bit of “social justice” happening on these social media review sites.  It seems that when real consumers encounter exaggerated claims of service and satisfaction – they seem to be motivated to respond.  While my personal evaluation of a particular business may have been a 3 out of five – I’ve seen time and time a glowing 5 star -obviously fictional-  review followed by a scathing 1 star review.  Was the 1 star review accurate?  Probably not – but it seems to frequently be issued in response to an undeserved 5 star review.

The worst part about the glowing – but fictitious  – 5 star review is that it unnecessarily sets unrealistic expectations for your product or service.  While a 3 or even 4 out of 5 star authentic review my not be a huge boost to your ego – it is authentic and not only can it serve as useful consumer feedback but it also sets a more realistic set of expectations for your product or services.  This more realistic set of expectations means higher levels of consumer satisfaction which leads to positive online reviews.

After all – authentic online reviews on only a reflection of what is being said about your business in other areas – not only other online sites but offline as well.

Filed Under: Consumer reviews, Online Reputation Management Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 2, 2009

When Someone Steals Your Branding

One of the biggest problems with being a “service provider” is the you deal in intangibles – a world removed from the confines of the physical.

When you’re selling the intangible, the manner in which you describe and SELL your services is equally intangible.

As a result, many professional service providers rely on creating catch phrases to describe what they do  and how they do it.  They build their own personal “brand” around such “catch” phrases.

I have a client who did exactly that.  She literally crafted a unique term which richly describes exactly what she does and she created a thriving business providing those services to business owners.

Fortunately, and I do breath a HEAVY sigh of relief around this one, she did make the minimal investment and actually REGISTERED the domain name for this unique term around which she’s built her personal brand.

However, while she registered the domain name containing these keywords and even launched a blog on this domain name, she hasn’t had the time or desire to begin populating her blog with content – so the blog has sat for a while, sporting as its only content the “Hello World” post that comes standard with every brand new WordPress installation.

This weekend, this client did a Google search on her keyword term and saw something which made her physically ill and with good reason.

Someone else is ranking #1 on her beloved keyword term.

To make matters worse, this competitor was a client of hers from several years ago.  She worked with him as he was launching his own consulting business and he, in turn, decided to return the favor by offering services under her branded term.

The dirty thief stole her brand!

In her email to me, the pain was evident.  Here was someone with whom she had “performed her magic” and now he was not only offering “her” services but he was doing it using the keywords she thought she “owned”.

Unfortunately for her, he published an article on a PR4 site and now his article is beating her empty blog for her beloved keyword term.

It’s hard enough when you’re an expert in your field – bearing all the battle wounds and scars that come with earning such a distinction – to watch someone launch a competitive service.

It’s harder still when you’ve actually BUILT hundreds of boats to watch someone who read your book on “How to Build a Better Boat” promote their seminar on the subject.

If you let yourself – you can drive yourself insane with that kind of stuff.  “It’s obvious he’s never even HELD a hammer in his hands!  Look!!!  Not a single callous!  Who does he think he is?”  Who does he think he’s fooling?”

Well, he’s fooling everyone who’s never built a boat and signs up for his seminar – that’s who he’s fooling.

He may have read your book – but I’ll bet that even he would rather face the high seas in the craft YOU built rather than the one he keeps meaning to build.

I’ve had more than my fair share of “clients turned competitors” over the past 12 years.  One of the things I embrace in my life is trying to learn important life lessons from mistakes – preferably the mistakes of others!!!

PAINFUL BUSINESS LESSON #1:  IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

I don’t care how innovative your product or service is, if it’s even moderately successful you should expect imitators.  Someone is going to do it faster, cheaper and better if you’re not actively involved in learning how to deliver your goods faster, cheaper and better.

PAINFUL BUSINESS LESSON #2:THE VALUE OF BEING FIRST DIMINISHES OVER TIME

There’s a lot of value in being first with an idea – but if you don’t stake your claim then someone else will.  Bill Gates wasn’t the first person to create a way for computers and “regular” humans to communicate more efficiently – but he was the first to promote the idea to business owners.

As I said earlier, the one bright spot to this story is that my client registered the domain name containing the keywords of her personal branding phrase back in 2005.  She didn’t trademark it – but at least when the branding thief tried to steal her thunder – he couldn’t steal the domain name.

Unfortunately, being first with this phrase is losing it’s luster.  Now there are competitors who are taking this phrase and running with it.  Because my client owns the domain name – when her competitors use the term, they will be promoting HER blog – but that only works if she can get the blog populated with content.

PAINFUL BUSINESS LESSON #3: BUSINESSES ARE EITHER GROWING OR THEY’RE DYING

There is no such thing as being “stagnant” in business.  As I stated earlier – if you’re not actively involved in making your products or services better, faster and cheaper – then your business is not growing but is in the process of dying.   How long it takes for the final bell to toll is simply a function of the size of your business.  If you’re a US automaker, that death can take decades.  If you’re a small one person show – that process can take just a few months.

PAINFUL BUSINESS LESSON #4: WHEN YOU’RE SELLING INTANGIBLES – IMAGE IS EVERYTHING!

When you’re selling professional services – image is EVERYTHING!

I have complete and total sympathy for my client.   She was actively involved in PRACTICING her craft rather than promoting her image.  I get it.  She had more clients than she could possibly handle and has been struggling for the past two years on ways to expand her practice without sacrificing the quality of the work done.  Since so MUCH of the practice is predicated upon her “magic” – this has been a difficult undertaking.

She was busy practicing her craft rather than protecting her image.

Now, she’s discovering that even though her practice was full, she still should have been out there “protecting” her brand.   She’s discovering that a thief has been quietly working to steal her “thunder”. While she’s been struggling to protect the integrity of the services provided under her name – someone’s been stealing her “branding” term.

In my client’s defense – she knows what terms are important to her and she is aware that she needs to protect her “online stake” in those terms.  That puts her MILES ahead of many, many business owners today.

So now I’ll ask – what do YOU do to protect your branding?  My mind goes to registering domain names and launching blogs for protection…. while my client is contacting a trademark attorney.  Are there any other tactics I’m missing?

Filed Under: Online Reputation Management Tagged With: , ,
February 2, 2009

Social Media Marketing – What you don’t know CAN hurt you

Maybe you don’t think you need social media marketing.

Maybe you’re hoping that if you ignore it, this whole “social media” craze will fade away.

Maybe what you don’t know won’t hurt your business.

Whether you like it or not, social media is happening and it’s affecting your business.  Your customers and your potential customers are using the web to gather information about everything under the sun.  They are then talking about the products and services they’re using.  Good or bad, the conversations are happening and now they’re happening online as well as off line.

Conversations about products and services  have been going on since humans first began to communicate.  Eons ago, Caveman Joe and his friends sat around the fire trading stories of where the best hunting sites were.  Fast forward in time and a decade ago neighbors would trade tales of which neighborhood dentist is good and which one is not so good at the PTA meeting.  (This was known as word of mouth advertising.)

Today, we’re more likely to go online and do a Google search before we have the conversation in person.

The difference between then and now:  back then when those stories were told – they didn’t leave a digital trail.  In order for a story to hit the news, a reporter had to hear about it and most importantly CARE about the issue.  Long ago, the buzz – or the damage – ended when the sound of the voice speaking faded away.  Silence the voice and  the story was gone.  There was no proof – there was no evidence – if the story was bad, there was the possibility of it fading away and there was ALWAYS the possibility of forgetting the details.

That was then – this is now.

Now, these same conversations are happening online.  The stories are being told in a different venue – where they are indexed, compiled and offered up for retrieval at a moments notice.

Now, instead of asking about your business at the PTA meeting – social networking Joe will simply log on and plug in his search terms to see what Google knows about your and your business.

What will he find when he searches for you?

What kind of first impression will you and your business make upon him?

Recently, Belkin – a manufacturer of electronics – got caught in an attempt to play the social media marketing game by gaming those results. Rather than rely on customers to post real reviews of Belkin products- they decided to advertise and offered to pay for post positive reviews.  Their advertisement was seen by Arlen Parsa who happened to have a blog.  Even though he’s not a reporter, he broken the story like a pro in Exclusive: Belkin’s Development Rep is Hiring People to Write Fake Positive Amazon Reviews.  Other bloggers saw this post, picked up the story and carried it as well.  Suddenly, Belkin has a PR problem.

Here’s a news flash for everyone who thinks they can do business “as usual” (a.k.a. without an expectation of transparency) in today’s world – an era I’ve dubbed the No Trust Zone. This is a time when there are literally tens of millions of blogs, authored by even more bloggers who are constantly on the prowl for new fresh content:

THE WEB IS WATCHING!

Your customers have access to the web.  Even if they don’t have a blog themselves, chances are they either know someone who does or can find one pretty easily and drop a comment.   If a blogger gets wind of the story  you’d rather not have told- well, that’s the downside to Web 2.0.  If that happens, you’d better bring out the bullet proof vest for your PR department – because it’s going to get ugly.

Belkin is not exactly a techno-unsavvy business – yet even with their considerable web presence, a search of Google for their business name “Belkin” returns on the first page a story of the recent scandal: Gizmodo’s post: Belkin Employee Sheds Light On Belkin’s Supposedly Dirty Practices.

In Belkin Gets Caught Buying 5-Star Reviews & My Alternative Recipe for Ratings Success, Andy Beal offers suggestions on how to get HONEST product reviews from satisfied customers.  (Unfortunately, according to the Gizmodo post, the whole REASON behind the for the Belkin review payola was that the products couldn’t get positive reviews from real customers!)

Fortunately for Belkin, they “own” their own number 1 listing at Google – otherwise, a scandal such as this cound be the “top result” for a search for the business name for a long time to come.

Unfortunately for Micheal Bayard – Business Development Representative for Belkin – he’s not so lucky.  He’s making headlines such as  Michael Bayard and Belkin: What’s the Big Deal and Belkin Representive hires people to write positive reviews for their product on Amazon.

Those search engine friendly blogs are great at delivering top results on desired keyword terms, aren’t they?  Unfortunately that’s not a good thing for those who thought authenticity was a word used to trip up 6th graders during a spelling bee.   The “power of the blog”  blade cuts deep and can leave a permanent scar on an online reputation.

This is the new way of the world.  The web is watching.  “I’m blogging this,” is more powerful than you think.  Even a “tiny” blog can get a big voice in a hurry.

Oh, and authenticity is NOT an obscure spelling word – it’s the new “way of the world”.

VIVA AUTHENTICITY!

Filed Under: Online Reputation Management Tagged With: ,