Impressions - September 2015 - 50

Use Google Alerts to constantly scan the web for
references to your company. It's easy and free.

behavior in other areas, viewers will
discount or dismiss the negative information. In other words, they want to believe
what everyone else is saying.

REPUTATION MONITORING
How do you know if someone has
posted something negative about your
business? Google Alerts constantly scan
the Internet for references to you. It's easy,
free and all you need is a Gmail account.
To make an alert, visit google.com/
alerts. Enter the name of the site and the
person or brand that you want to be notified about. You can set up as many accounts as you wish. Click on the "Show
Options" triangle next to the email address to which you want the notifications
sent. The options will allow you to choose
how often you will be notified. I choose
"As it Happens" for frequency, "Automatic"
for sources and "All Results" for the number of results I want to receive.
You can set up the alert to include your
company name and any keywords you
want associated with you, and they do not
expire. Because of the speed with which
you can be alerted, you can respond almost
immediately to any comment or post. This
is important because you often can contact the person who posted it to find out
what really is going on. If you resolve the
situation, that person may even change or
delete the post. If not, you can post a reply,
showing the community you are on top of
the situation and providing evidence of
your responsible nature.
50

Impressions | September 2015

You can do the same thing with Twitter, and recieve web notifications, as well
as getting a text message sent directly to
your phone as the Tweet is happening. You
need to add your mobile phone to your
account. You can enable notifications for
whenever someone you follow Tweets or
mentions you by enabling your account's
mobile settings. There are options to turn
on Tweet notifications via the Internet,
SMS or from a specific person. You also
can toggle between turning Twitter SMS
updates on or off.

WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN
Sooner or later, your business will be
sniped by someone. When this happens,
stay calm, take the high road and always
act professionally. The last thing you want
to do is get sucked into a flame war with
someone who thinks he's been wronged.
Speed is of the essence. As soon as you
know a negative post has appeared, you
need to:
1. Reach out to the person (if you know
who it is).
2. Apologize for the poor experience.
3. Ask the person to explain exactly
what happened.
4. Repeat the situation as closely as
possible to what he told you.
5. Finish with, "Did I get that right? If
yes, "Is there anything else?" If no,
"Please tell me what I missed?"
This sequence will go a long way toward fixing the problem. Finally, ask what
it will take to resolve the situation. This

is hard to do, especially if you feel like
you haven't done anything wrong. Most
people will be reasonable in their requests,
but this is where negotiation and compromise come in.
The idea is to get the customer to realize you are trying to solve the problem
in a reasonable way. You also can agree to
disagree, specifying that neither of you is
happy with the result.
At the end of the conversation, ask the
customer if he wants to amend his review.
Don't try to force him to make a 1-star
into a 5-star rating, but it can happen. He
wants to be heard and valued. If you can
do that, you can turn a bad situation into
a good one.
If he refuses, acknowledge his right to
leave the review and thank him for taking
the time to talk with you. Apologize again
for the unsatisfactory experience and
promise to make things better next time.
Post your own response, beginning
with an apology for the poor experience.
This shows the world you care about the
customer and his experience.
Here's an example: "We're so sorry you
had a disappointing experience when you
were at XYZ. We work hard to make sure
every customer is happy, but sometimes,
for whatever reason, a job goes bad. This
upsets us as much as it does you. We apologize again for disappointing you."
If you don't know who the customer is,
add to your comment that you would like
to speak with him personally and invite
him to contact you at your phone number.
If the negativity is irrational and overthe-top contrary to how you normally do
business, you have a couple of options. First,
follow the above guideline. Second, solicit
support from some of your loyal customers who can counter the negativity with
their own experiences. I've seen examples
where happy customers have countered a
complainer to the point that the company
didn't even have to respond. Your good
reputation is your best defense.
Mark A. Coudray has been an active
member of the Academy of Screen Printing
and Digital Technology since 1989, and
has written for Impressions since 1978. For
more information or to contact Mark, email
him at coudray@coudray.com.
impressionsmag.com

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Impressions - September 2015

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