With your online reputation everything counts

It really pains me to see others making basic mistakes when dealing with people online. Our reputation is everything!

I met someone last week who said “I don’t really care what people think of me”. REALLY!  You may get away with this attitude if you have a very rare talent or pots of cash, but you probably won’t have too many friends.

Have you ever received an email and looked at the way the wording is phrased then thought immediately “I don’t want to do business with this person”?

Have you gone onto a web site and thought the site was so poor you wouldn’t bother making the call and gone somewhere else

The bottom line is that you can tell an enormous amount about a person (or a company, but it’s basically still a person) from the simple things like how they address others, how much care they take with their online properties, how they respond to your inquiry, how they deal with complaints and compliments, basically any interaction.

How’s your online reputation? Check out “Me on the web” in your Google dashboard, it’s free and you might find something interesting…

Before the internet, and in particular the social revolution that was “Web 2.0” post 2005, one error of judgement was easily forgotten. Now that one person can have a serious impact on your business by telling millions about their experience.

So why should you care?

At this very moment your clients are interacting with you.  They are reading your emails, looking at your web site, thumbing a brochure (yes it matters offline and online), following your blog, etc. so you have an opportunity to leave a good or a bad impression.

On the internet almost everything you do stays online forever. If you’re doing good work this is terrific news, if not its very bad news indeed.

Think about every integration you have and how you would want to be treated.  To quote a cliché “you reap what you sow”, so get sowing but just use the good stuff!

I’d just like to mention two exceptional customer service experiences I’ve recently had:

Thanks you Gavin at Govan Optometrists in St Andrews and Scott at Livelines Tackle in Armadale.  Well done to you both, it was a pleasure and I will be back!