Reputation management is not something most people associate with being a local service like a landscaper or a doctor, but they should.
The trend of our time in search space is the trend from nationwide searches to local searches. Consumers are looking up local businesses every day by the many millions – carpenters, doctors, lawyers, barbers, electricians, you name it, and it’s local. As consumer focus has shifted to the local level, so have review sites, and therefore, so has reputation management.
Businesses that get slammed locally by people hopping online and leaving negative reviews present us in the white label reselling business with an enormous opportunity. It’s a well-established fact that most services sell at a local level, whether it’s website development, social media management, business listings, or anything else; local is the way to go – so is reputation management.
Many who operate agencies are stumped about what kind of a strategy they should be taking when it comes to their client’s reputations. Most wait until their client’s reputations get damaged before even thinking about a strategy – ouch. A good reputation strategy starts with a sound understanding that the best defense is a killer offense, and offense in this space means building a bulwark against negative reviews before they even happen. This means working proactively to create a positive reputation for your client.
Positive reputations can happen naturally, as is the case for many businesses that operate with a high degree of excellence. Still, more often than not, a positive reputation is the product of careful cultivation over time. Here at Rocket Driver, our white label reputation management solutions are all designed around proactive reputation management, whereby we work to help construct a positive reputation for the end-clients. We work by soliciting positive reviews from their customers – both written reviews and video reviews. The strategy we employ is highly effective because end-clients customers who love the business are often eager to give positive reviews – if they are asked and if it’s convenient.
Many businesses don’t know that it’s okay to ask, and unfortunately, neither do many agencies. Asking is okay, and if the reviews are from real customers, you’re building a good reputation.
What NOT to do is either go on the offense against negative reviewers or purchase fake reviews. These two unfortunate paths are followed by some and can result in extreme amounts of damage. End-clients caught buying and posting fake reviews can end up with even worse reputations than if they had done nothing, and a reputation tied to a client’s actual name can last a lifetime. Going on the offense, lashing out, trying to “get even” with negative reviewers is childish and paranoid and looks terrible in the eyes of potential customers.
The best defense is an offense, but it’s an offense based upon cultivating a good reputation with the help of those who love the business the most, their customers. To learn more about our white label reputation management solutions, please browse our site and get in touch with us; we would love to help your agency gain a footing in this exciting new realm of our industry.