Up until recently, if you didn’t have a Google account you could not post a review on Google Places.  Inside sources are saying that this is going to change!  Read current policy.

For business owners, the current policy meant that only about 25% of their happy customers could post an in-store review if they were asked to share their positive experience online.  The Google Places App simplifies review collection right at the point of experience for Google account holders but it left many people unable to participate.

In the automotive industry, Google Places is the #1 free source of referral traffic for car dealers.  Our busiest automotive clients have Google Places listings with over 40,000 impressions a month with the average around 15,000 impressions a month.

Properly configured and merchandized Google Places pages drive thousands of clicks per month to the dealer’s primary website.  Google Places is an important part of a digital marketing strategy; it is the yellow pages meets consumer reports.

Change In Review Posting Policy

A respected industry source has started telling clients that Google will drop the gmail account requirement and allow anyone to post a review.  This change, according to this source, will be happening over the next week.

What does this mean for Google Places?  What does this mean for third party review platforms? In the automotive industry there are popular platforms that include Dealerrater.com, PrestoReviews.com, and CarDealerCheck.com so what will this change mean for them?

I will have a follow-up article on how this change, when confirmed, will impact 3rd party review platforms.

When this change is confirmed,  it will be a great opportunity for business owners and especially car dealers who have strong customer service processes and have implemented iPads in their store for review collection.

Of course, you don’t need an iPad to post a review, any device can be used for Google Places; this was confirmed recently by Scott Falcone with an email from the Google Places team.

Don’t Put Your Review Eggs In One Basket

When Google changes their review posting policy to allow non gmail accounts, I still recommend that business owners spread out their posts to the review website that are dominant in their market on Google Page One.

I especially want business owners to identify existing YELP users because Apple’s Siri assistant uses Yelp.com reviews in listing local businesses.  If you have not tested this feature, ask Siri on your Apple 4s this question: “Chevrolet Dealers” and you can see the output Siri gave me in New Jersey.

I also recommend business owners use review platforms that allow the business to own their review content.  These platforms allow business owners to syndicate reviews on their blogs, websites, and even to create custom profile pages for the sales professionals.

A solid reputation marketing strategy must acknowledge that many review sites can impact buyers during the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and thus you can’t just focus on Google Places.

However, if this change in policy is confirmed this week, this will be a big boost for Google Places relevance.  It will also allow Google to better monetize the Google Adwords Express program which allows business owners to run ads with their current review counts, as shown below for Norman Jeep Chrysler Dodge in Oklahoma City.

These special Adwords Express ads really stand out from the normal Adwords ads and they have some very interesting ROI, which I will cover at the 2012 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Las Vegas, Feb 1-3rd.

So I’ll keep you posted when we can get an official response this week to this insider tip.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

• Archive

The conference will be held at the Palmer House in downtown Chicago.

This is the first time that local Chicago dealers can gain access to high quality digital marketing training offered by PCG Digital Marketing without a flight out of town!

Car dealers looking to learn more about managing their online reputation will be pleased to know that workshops and IRM specialists will be at the conference to help them create effective IRM processes.

Chicago Dealers – Please Answer These Questions:

• Are you leveraging the new communication channels provided by social media?
• Do you have an integrated digital marketing strategy for your dealership?
• Is your website conversion rate increasing each month?
• Could you be handling your calls and Internet leads better?
• Would you like a 2-4% average increase in closing ratios to to phone and Internet leads?
• Is your Fixed Operations Budget using SEM, SEO, and Social Media?
• Are you looking for advice on how to structure your entire advertising budget?
• Are you ready to implement free advertising strategies to increase website traffic?

Register to attend the next PCG Pit Stop^® that is conveniently located in Chicago that you can easily travel to and enjoy the workshop experience offered by PCG Education.

Dealers need more than just their 20 Group Meetings and annual conferences to stay connected with the latest changes in our industry.  Google has been making significant changes to Internet marketing every few months so don’t get left behind.

Details on the automotive conference can be found in the color brochure below:

• Archive

Today as I searched for Chicago Dealers and I was blown away how much Page One real estate was used for Google Maps listings.  This is the second time I saw this type of action on Page One this week, so it is time to start a discussion.

I color coded the SERP in sections to show that:

• Google Adwords was split on top and right shown in pink.
• Two organic listings were displayed above the new maps region, shown in green.
• That 7 spots were taken up with exploded Google Maps listings, shown in red.
• The remainder of the organics were shown under maps which were cut off on the screen capture.

Google Maps Changes IRM Strategies

I don’t see this type of display for all searches and maybe this is a new design for broad commercial searches but this is a game changer. What do you think?

What I can see is that Google review stars are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE VISIBLE which means that automotive reputation management processes must really be locked down. What I also see is that if you are not in the top spots for organic search, you will get crushed by this new design and experience significantly less clicks.

What I also would expect is that the Google Ads on the right side will receive less clicks. There is too much activity front and center that brings the consumers eye to the maps region. So this will also be a game changer for Adwords bidding.

Homework: Get your Google Maps listings updated with photos, videos, coupons, and make sure you have the geo-targeting set correctly. If this is a look at the future, the more complete and compelling your Google Maps listing is, the more calls and clicks you will receive.

If you need help, call: 732.450.8200.

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When Google Maps displays listings of car dealers, as shown below, it has been proven that high star counts increase click-through rates. With over 330 reviews displayed for Marlboro Nissan, their Google Maps traffic will surely increase. Their Internet Reputation Management program will really pay off now.

And when you click on the details for each dealer, you can see how well DealerRater.com reviews dominate the page:

Reputation Management Services

Congratulations to Chip, Matt, and the entire DealerRater.com team for getting this integration completed. Dealers looking for assistance and training to setup strong reputation management processes can contact PCG Digital Marketing for an IRM proposal.

• Archive

Here’s an excerpt from Brian’s IRM workbook:

I am often asked how to deal with DUPLICATE directory listings for your business on popular directories like Google Maps and consumer review sites like Yelp, Insider Pages or CitySearch.  It is not uncommon for a business to have multiple entries on the same website if:

1. Your business has moved during the past 10 years.
2. Your business has gone through a name change.
3. Someone added a new listing without checking for previous entries
4. Someone has purposely added the business multiple times with variations on your business name.

Duplicate Entries Are Not Good

Leaving duplicate entries on the same website dilutes your Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process and may trigger the website owner to ban both accounts if they feel you are spamming their index.   Duplicate entries that a consumer may find via organic search or by searching a review website should be removed.

To find duplicates, try these steps using Google search:

1. Search Google for your business name + the name of the review site
2. Search Google for your business phone number + name of the review site
3. Search Google for your OEM brand, city  + name of the review site
4. Search or your business name inside of the website using their search tool.

So, if your dealership name is Brickell Honda, you would test for duplicates on InsiderPages.com by going to Google and typing as a search these three phrases:

1. brickell honda insiderpages
2. 866-645-7878 insiderpages
3. honda miami insiderpages

The process for removing duplicate entries varies by website.  Google Maps has an easy tool to report duplicate or erroneous map entries.  Other websites like Yelp, have a reporting process that requires a few more steps.  Invest the time in making sure all your public directory listings are correct. 

Review All Public Directory Listings

When you review your business listings, here are some suggestions:

1. Make sure you have a tracking number on the most popular websites, like Google Maps, and the review websites that show on Google Page One and Page Two for your dealership name.
2. Make sure your website address is correct
3. Make sure that you have selected the proper business category “tag” for the services you offer.
4. Make sure there are no spelling errors.
5. Make sure you take advantage of any sites that allow you to load photos or videos to your listing page.

Once all the most effective IRM websites are de-duped, record the links to all your business profile pages in a file that can be used to for IRM letters, icon placement for your primary website or to be used in a Reputation Management Portal (RMP). 

Checking What Consumers Are Saying

By having a single document that has all your profile page links, it is a basic ad no-cost way to see what has been written about your business online.  Setup a procedure where someone on your team visits these profile pages to ensure that no complaints have been posted that you are not aware of.

Setting up Google Alerts is another free tool to notify you in real-time when anything is posted online with your dealership name. However ,in case you miss some alerts, checking your manual list will be a second round of checks and balances for your overall social media strategy.

There are paid services that automate this process and save you the manual work but not everyone has extra money to spend.  So you have no excuse, other than time, not to check your current business listings and clean them up if they have duplicates on the same website.

See You In Orlando

At my DD8 seminar I will demonstrating the most effective strategies, policies and procedures to create powerful Internet Internet Reputation Management (IRM) campaign, which should be an integral part of your social media strategy.  Public review websites is one of the most powerful social media tools that consumers have decided are valuable so you can’t ignore them!

• Archive

Many articles on the Internet have discussed Automotive Internet Reputation Management and the importance of checking what consumers are writing about you on the Internet.  Still many dealers fail to read even what is posted or rolled-up on Google Maps.  Automotive Reputation Management must be a standard operating procedures for car dealers in 2010.

Hare Chevrolet RMP

I would like to offer some new twists on this discuss with the concept of a Reputation Management Portal (RMP).  In the example shown above, we have taken a simple WordPress website and consolidated links to popular review websites.   Each icon is linked to the specific review page for our client Hare Chevrolet. 

Here is an overview of the Reputation Management Portal (RMP):

1. The site is created on a great branding URL, like www.iloveharechevy.com
2. The dealer can print up postcards and give them to happy customers marketing this catchy URL.
3. The single URL can be easily promoted offline and also by email.
4. The review website icons that you show and the order that they appear can be changed.
5. You can add your streaming Dealerrater reviews as a tab, as shown on this site.
6. You can add your Facebook Fan Page stream as a tab, as shown on this site.
7. You can add your YouTube video channel of testimonials, if they exist.
8. You can add your Twitter stream as a sidebar widget.
9. You can add a quote form for consumers who stumble upon you site and want a car.
10. You can add popular links in the sidebar to drive traffic to your main website.
11. You can add blog posts to the site to highlight written testimonials that arrive via email or postal mail.

If  Hare Chevrolet prints up postcards that promote this website www.iloveharechevy.com, you can bet that their service advisors will be able to identify happy customers to hand the card as ask for their assistance.  That’s dozens of postcards in people’s hands each day. 

You can bet that your sales managers know who the customers that are very excited about their purchase experience.  Instead of just handing out a card for one review website, why not create your own Reputation Management Portal postcard and drive reviews where they are needed most.

The great thing about the RMP being a WordPress website, is that anyone can add or change icons to promote higher review counts on new websites.  Once this is set in place, you don’t need a programmer to get involved.  

This will allow you to direct review traffic to different websites throughout the year to have a wider branding influence since there are about 10 review websites that should be included in a comprehensive IRM strategy.

If you like this idea, and would like a RMP constructed for your dealership, its very easy and simple to manage.  I have a few other ideas to help dealers in 2010 increase their brand visibility online.

We’ll have some “killer” strategies revealed at the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp  in Orlando the day before the official start of NADA Convention.  If you are going to NADA, fly in on the 11th and register for an intense day of social media and digital marketing education.

I hope to see you there….

• Archive

A new website  called SurChur (http://surchur.com)  can actually be used as an Automotive Internet Reputation Management tool.

The tabs make it easy to quickly see what is being said about your dealership across the web.  This is a very convenient dashboard for what is currently being written about any search phrase and I recommend that dealers use it regularly along with Google Alerts and Google Reader.

Internet Reputation Management and monitoring will need to be part of auto retailers standard operating procedures in 2010.  If dealers are looking for assistance and training in Automotive IRM, call the Pasch Consulting Group for a free consultation at 732-450-8200.

• Archive

Consumers have tremendous power today to express their opinions about their experience at your business and make that voice heard. With dozens of popular websites containing a listing of your business that allows for consumer reviews, car dealers can no longer ignore the feedback that is being shared online.

Automotive studies have confirmed that dealers who focus on good online customer service reviews see a measurable increase in calls and leads referred from review websites. Since Google Maps is now rolling up review scores from multiple websites, the consolidated dealer “score” is front and center for any search that includes a city or state search word and the brand that you sell.

Give it a try. Type in “Denver Toyota Dealers” and see that Google Maps is at the top of the organic search results, and under each address is a review count. This data encourages consumers to see how well you are doing. When you click on your review score, are you proud of what you see?

Which Websites Should I Monitor?

There are a number of review websites that need to be monitored because of how the search engines rank their content. Google, Yahoo and Bing may show a different priority when a consumer searches for your business name. Some of the websites that I suggest you monitor include:

• DealerRater.com
• InsiderPages.com
• CitySearch.com
• Judysbook.com
• Yelp.com
• MerchantCircle.com

Since new sites are always being created, the rule of thumb is that you should monitor any websites that have review capabilities that show up on Google Page One and Page Two for a search on your dealership name. Also check searches for your OEM brand and the city name where you are doing business from.

DealerRater.com is the only site that has a paid system which gives dealers a two week window to resolve complaints with consumers before they are posted. Since DealerRater.com is highly optimized for organic search, most dealers will find the site on Google Page One for searches on their name.

The search visibility of review websites make them difficult to ignore, especially if they have unbalanced negative reviews. Let me emphasize this point again; do not ignore review websites.

How To Increase Your Positive Review Counts

Like any digital marketing endeavor, you must honestly assess if you have the proper staff in place that will not be distracted from this important task. An effective Automotive IRM program, once launched, will require about 3-4 hours a week for the first six months to really see a difference. These hours are spent contacting satisfied customers and getting their buy-in to post a review on one of your targeted review websites.

If you don’t have the right staff in place or you know that your IRM staff member will be unable to isolate time each week for this important task, hire someone to do it for you.

Dealers do not have the luxury to ignore online review websites. They have to have a process in place that ensures that online comments reflect the true percentage of positive and negative feedback in their store.

Proactive IRM Starts With a Friendly Phone Call

My staff has found that starting with a phone call makes the process more intimate and meaningful. Call through a list of customers that have purchased in the last 7 days and ask first about their experience at your dealership. Thank them for their business and find out if they need assistance.

Ask them if they would recommend your dealership to family and friends. If they say yes, explain that consumers start their car research on the Internet and that their peers will value their opinion if they found it online. Ask them to help you educate their peers by sharing their positive experience online.

If the phone call is handled professionally, most customers will agree to help. Tell them that you will make it easy by sending them an email with links to two websites where they can post their review. Don’t overwhelm them with six review websites; rotate which two sites are used so you cover all sites over time. Ask them if they can write their review in the coming week. Most will say yes. This is an important buy-in question to reinforce in your email.

Thank them specifically for their commitment to open the email and post a review in the next week. Once you send the email, keep a log on when they said they would post their review. Check back to the sites you included in your email with links and see if they made a post.

If they did not post, send them a very brief email saying that you were following up and that maybe the email was caught up in their spam filter. Remind them how easy it is to click on the link and post a review. Ask them nicely to honor their commitment to help educate others. The second notice gets more people to keep their promise. Everyone is busy and a friendly reminder is just that.

It’s A Process That Yields Results

If every week your dealership’s proactive IRM program adds two new reviews, at the end of the year you will have over 100 positive statements that you can leverage. More likely, you can get 4-5 reviews a week with a few hours of dedication. This will yield over 250 reviews in a year.

When Google Maps displays your dealership and your competitors on a list which shows that you have 100 more reviews than your closet competitor, you will be amazed at the results. If you place a unique tracking phone number on your Google Maps listing today and start this process, you will be pleased to see how an increase in positive reviews equates to more calls. These calls may even be considered “warm leads” because of the positive reviews that they have most likely read.

With an emphasis on advertising your customers positive experiences, you are well positioned when a negative comment is posted. The reality is that if you don’t start an IRM process, the majority of posts that you will read online will be negative. Life is about balance. No dealership can be perfect. For most dealers the negative customer experiences are a small percentage of their sales. Make sure your online review scores accurately reflect that same percentage.

Don’t Buy Votes

Starting December 1, 2009, a new law, which will be enforced by the FTC, has guidelines for people who write online reviews, endorsements and testimonials. The law is focused on online posts where the writer has been compensated in some way for the review. (Download FTC Rules)

Take a moment to make sure that your dealership is in full compliance. To simplify the matter, never pay for an online review or endorsement. Never offer a free oil change, a free tire rotation, a discount or a gift card in exchange for a review or testimonial. If a reviewer is compensated according to the new law, that must be disclosed in the review.

Compensation cheapens the experience for your customers and it may get you in trouble. You don’t want to be the first auto dealer that the FTC sues under this new law because a competitor reported you. Just wait, every industry will have its turn under the FTC magnifying glass.

If a customer is not compelled by a friendly voice to share their experience online, move on to another customer. Most dealers have hundreds of customers each month that they can draw upon for IRM assistance. Some dealers have utilized a business card which lists popular review sites, and they encourage their staff to get customer commitment when they deliver the car. Just make it easy to get your customer involved.

It goes without saying, never implement a system where your sales staff receives monetary or cash equivalent rewards for having their customers post the most reviews. This system will always result in cheating and fake reviews being posted by sales staff and their friends from their home computers.

Never encourage customers to post reviews from inside your Internet café since many sites will notice multiple posts from the same IP address and ban your account.

Dealers that have an active Facebook page or Twitter account can also post links to the reviews written by their satisfied customers. By praising customers who have helped spread the word, you create a desire in other customers to receive that same praise.

You can ask your followers to post a review by adding easy links to the websites previously listed. Make it easy for them to participate. People who are already online and who are asked to help promote their experience at your dealership are likely to follow a link and post a review if done properly.

Defensive Internet Reputation Management Tactics

An effective IRM program has an offensive and defensive strategy. The defensive team knows when a new comment, blog post or article has been indexed on the Internet by Google. The defensive mantra says: ” The sooner you know about a problem, the better chance you have to diffuse the matter.”

If you would like to receive email notifications when someone writes a review or a blog post that includes your dealership name, I highly recommend Google Alerts. You can use this free service to monitor your dealership name and the names of key executives. When set up, you will know via email when a new post is indexed in Google, and then decide how to respond.

There are tools on the market to automate this process. You just have to decide if you need anything more than Google Alerts. If you have an active campaign to post positive reviews each week, your staff will be on all the top review sites every week checking what has been posted.

The need to pay for a monitoring service may not be justified for a single point dealership. Larger dealer groups that have one person managing multiple dealer properties may be better served to purchase an automated tool or just outsource the process.

Internet Reputation Management = Brand Protection

I started the article with this question:

If a customer came to your dealership in the still of the night and spray painted “Liar” and “Cheat” in large letters on your street facing signage, would you leave it untouched when you arrived in the morning?

An Internet Reputation Management (IRM) program is also a brand protection process. As more of your customers start and end their car shopping experience on the Internet, your online brand becomes vitally important.

I predict that customer reviews will be further leveraged and consolidated by savvy entrepreneurs because of the influence that they yield. Imagine what would happen if someone created a customer “score” and made that score a household name.

When used car shoppers want to know about a vehicle’s history, they often ask for a CARFAX report. Imagine the impact if a company invested the money to nationally brand the concept of a DEALERSCORE report; a consolidated summary of your online customer satisfaction scores. What would your consolidated score look like?

From my search experience, less that 20% of car dealers across the USA have implemented a healthy proactive IRM program.

Over half of the dealers in America have “You Suck” written on their Internet billboards and they don’t seem to care. The rest may have no reviews at all, which means they are even more vulnerable for that first negative post.

There is no better time to get started than today.

Your competitors hope you do nothing.

Copies of This Article

If you would like a PDF copy of this article to use at your dealership, you can download it here: Automotive Internet Reputation Management

About The Author

Brian Pasch is the CEO of the Pasch Consulting Group and an active writer for the automotive community. You can find him on:

Twitter http://www.twitter.com/automotiveseo

Facebook http://facebook.com/paschconsulting

You can also reach Brian in his New Jersey offices at 732-450-8200.

• Archive

Business owners often feel helpless in protecting their online reputation from valid blog posts and  negative posts planted by competitors.  On the flip side, businesses often fail to leverage positive commentary and testimonials posted on the Internet. Having a proactive strategy for disseminating positive commentary can often be the best defense against future negative attacks.

Internet Reputation Management services have a bright future. New web content is growing in direct relation to the explosive growth of social networking portals.   Each month new tools are being made available to allow a non-technical Internet user to create their own website, blog and social networking portal.  With the ease at which content can be created, organized and shared on the Internet, business owners need to be mindful of what is being written about their company.

Free Basic Reputation Tracking Tools

Protecting your reputation on the Internet can start with using a simple and effective tool called “Google Alerts”. Once you create a free Google account, you can enter specific search phrases into your own watch list.  Google will then send you an email with links to articles that include the phrases in your watch list.  You can request notifications as they happen or summarized daily, weekly or monthly. I would recommend that you start with the “as it happens” choice for a week, and then decide if you want to move it to “once a day”.

For our company, our watch list includes ‘Brian Pasch”, “Pasch Consulting”, “Pasch Consulting Group”, and “NJ SEO”. We also include in our watch list some of the buzz words in the niches we cover.  For our Automotive Marketing Division our watch list includes: “Automotive SEO”, “Automotive Digital Marketing”, “Car Dealer Websites” and “Automotive SEO Specialist”.  We use Google Alerts for both reputation management as well as tracking what other companies are posting in our competitive space.

Creating your Reputation Management Watch List

 A recommended strategy for a business watch list would include your business name, your product names and the names of your key executives.  Knowing what is being said, both positive and negative, is the first step in creating a sustained reputation management plan.

Your Internet Reputation Management strategy should have a clear escalation plan for positive and negative commentary.  Positive commentary should be evaluated and the very best should be included on your own company blog or website news page.  You may want to get permission from the individual to repurpose their commentary in your marketing materials.

Negative content should have an immediate response strategy which is best handled by a seasoned SEO and Reputation Management Consultant (RPC). Every post will have a different strategy depending on where the post was made and the policies of the website host.

Reputation Management for Professional Services

Recently, a New York City executive coaching and placement firm called the Pasch Consulting Group about a barrage of vicious attacks on the firm’s founder and on the services they offer for executives in transition.  The negative posts were well planned and well placed so that they appeared on Google Page One, when consumers issued a search on the company name.  The CEO said that these comments were directly hurting their business and needed immediate relief.

 The company’s lawyer had already pursued legal action against the individual who posted the verbal assaults under different names and aliases.  This disgruntled individual eventually signed a retraction letter and promised to stop this Internet reputation attack.  In reality, he never stopped posting.  So we were called in to help. Within 30 days we were able to have the most visible articles removed from the various websites. We also found additional negative posts on business portal sites that we were able to remove directly.

PCG created an offensive plan to get articles posted about the hundreds of satisfied clients the company had from its long history.  For this client, they never invested the time to post their client testimonials and case studies on the Internet.  Using various techniques, PCG was able to add significant content in Google page 1 and 2 for searches on their company name.

Reputation Management for Car Dealers

For Automotive Dealers, online reputation management must be part of your Internet Marketing Strategy to protect your PMA from neighboring car dealers.  If a car dealer’s visible Internet reputation is poor, consumers may very well shop at a neighboring dealership.  

I have seen posts on the Internet that were outlandish and shocking.  If I were in the market to buy a car, these negative posts would give me second thoughts about buying from certain dealers.  It only takes a few angry consumers to make any dealership look like the devil.  You can search Google yourself to find dealers being called racist, discriminatory and deceptive. 

Often, consumers have a choice between two dealers that are 15 miles apart. If one car dealer has glowing reputation scores and one has low scores, reputation can sway their final pick.  I recognize that other factors play a part in that final decision like price, convenience and availability.  However, if your Internet reputation can be improved, taking remedial action is mandatory to continue to grow your Internet sales leads.

Sites like DealerRater.com, Yahoo Local, Insider Pages, Google Maps and Yelp all have review engines that can appear on Google Page One when consumers search your business name.  General Managers need to implement a system to regularly request positive review from their customers.  This can include new car customers as well as service customers.

Businesses should create a list of all review pages in an email and send these links to satisfied customers.  The email should request that they post an honest review of your company.  Do not attempt to post customer reviews from your own business computers.  Many of these sites track IP addresses and you could be banned from the directory for review spamming.

Empowering Your Satisfied Customers

Reputation Management requires both an offensive and defensive strategy.  The longer your offensive strategy is in place, the harder it is for negative commentary to drastically affect your business.  If you have been lax at posting positive commentary, then ANY negative commentary will look out of proportion.

Business owners can no longer ignore public commentary and commercial review websites.  A restaurant owner that has a comment posted on the Internet about a food poisoning episode, without balanced commentary, will be affected for consumers looking to try a new restaurant using Internet based searches.   A hotel that has posts about dirty bed linens and mildew will see their online bookings drop.  Simply stated, any post with your company name needs to be reviewed.

The Pasch Consulting Group has effective methodologies and strategies to assist business owners in implementing  a solid reputation management action plan.  If you would like additional information, visit http://www.paschconsulting.com

• Archive

First of all, the name of these websites, when they appear on a page of search results for your business name, is enough to unnerve you alone. When your business name and RipOffReport.com is in the title of a Google search result page, it immediately implies that you have done something wrong.  When these complaint posts are resolved to the satisfaction of the consumer, you will find that the post still stays up.  You might infer that the end game of these websites it to have something “bad” on every business name to drive traffic to their advertising campaigns.

Second, these websites make their living off of being sensational and controversial, so don’t expect any common courtesy or concern as to how a post is negatively affecting your business.  The owners of these websites get daily threats and letters from lawyers but most are ignored.  This can be incredibly frustrating especially when businesses could be losing hundreds or thousands of dollars each week the post remains visible. 

Is there any protection from your competitors who decide to make false reports?  Not really.  If someone wants to attack there are numerous ways to defame another company anonymously.  So what is a company to do when the Internet has created a virtual soapbox for anyone to instantly create a negative global message? 

Companies need to have a strategy that includes offensive and defense measures to control what consumers are writing about them on the Internet.  Companies that stand to be hurt by sites like:

• 1. www.ripoffreport.com
• 2. www.complaintsboard.com
• 3. www.pissedconsumer.com

should implement a proactive Internet Reputation Management strategy that includes positive reviews on the Internet to create a balanced view of their company and its products or services.

The defensive elements of an Internet Reputation Management strategy would start with ensuring that your business listing is correctly represented in all the top consumer review websites.  Once this task has been completed, an email needs to be drafted to your customers that would request and simplify the task of posting positive reviews on these sites. 

The customer participation email should have a few versions since there are so many places that you will eventually want to have reviews. You would not want to have only one version that shows links to 10 different review websites; it would overwhelm your customers.  I would recommend that you don’t put more than 3 choices in a customer email.

Since there are about a dozen websites that should be considered for your IRM platform, your first email could link to the highest value review sites like Google, Yahoo and Yelp.  Once these websites had ample reviews posted, you could send a second version of the email to target sites like InsiderPages, CitySearch and JudysBook.  The goal will be to have at least six positive reviews on the most popular public portals in your industry.

Do your research since every industry has specific high value web review properties.  For car dealers, that website is www.dealerrater.com.  For restaurants, they have a few high value sites like www.opentable.com and www.chowhound.com .  So, in addition to the big national review websites, don’t overlook industry specific websites.

Keep in mind that only REAL customers should be posting.  Often computer IP addresses are checked when a review is posted so 10 reviews from the same IP address would most likely raise a flag and the posts would be removed. 

Fake reviews are often easy to spot.  Encourage your customers to be specific in their reviews and write about whom they dealt with in your company and what was their specific interaction with your business. In your email, ask them to close the review with their full name and the State/City they live in.  By adding a name the post has an extra degree of credibility rather than a review being signed as “J. Smith”.

The offensive elements of an Internet Reputation Management (IRM) campaign will be proprietary to the firm that you hire to assist you with your specific problem.  However, in effect, an Internet Reputation Management consultant will often employ highly focused SEO strategies and content publishing platforms to push these negative reviews off of page one.

If you have not carefully reviewed what has been written about your business on the Internet, take the time to assign that task immediately.  Then formulate a company IRM policy that addresses any immediate needs and protects your business from future attacks. Ignorance in this area of Internet Marketing can be costly.

For more information on Internet Reputation Management, visit http://www.automotiveirm.com/

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