You’ll have spent a long-term making sure that your customers are happy with the service you provide. Your reputation is intact! Or is it? Like it or not, there’s a lot more that can hurt a company’s reputation than you might realize. Before you know it, you might have lost credibility in the eyes of the public, and you don’t even know how it happened. Below, we take a look at a few of the common, often overlooked factors that can lead to a company’s reputation losing some of its standing.
Poor Content
Your website is going to be the foundation of your success. Have a site that looks trustworthy and modern, and you’ll find it much easier to take care of business than if it were the opposite. Unfortunately, while we can put a lot of time into ensuring that our site looks the best it can be, our good work can often be undone by a couple of key factors; chiefly, poor and/or illegal content. By illegal content, we mean using photographs, videos, and text that you don’t have permission to use. Poor content might include spelling and other errors, or links to dead pages.
Poor Shipping Services
Remember, your job isn’t finished as soon as your customer has picked the item they want to buy from your site and they’ve paid. You still need to do your job, which is to make sure that the package arrives safely – indeed, this is the last factor in the initial buying process. Because of its importance, look at sending your goods in wooden packing crates; they’ll be kept safe, and the package will show your customer than you care if the goods get there in one piece. There’s a striking difference between high-quality package and one that’s put together as an afterthought, and both impact your company’s reputation.
Staying Static
Where you start is important, but it’s where you’re going that is key to your overall success. If you’re not always looking at evolving, then you’re liable to stay in the same space that you started. This will, of course, affect your income, and it’ll also affect how you’re perceived by your customers. There’s nothing worse than being thought of as a ‘company that’s behind the times.’ Take risks, and show your customers than you’re one for the future.
Standard Complaint Procedures
It’s good to have a complaints procedure, as this shows that you care about complaints. However, if you’re putting every complaint through the same process, then you’re not leaving much scope to deliver first-rate customer experience. Treat each complaint as individual; your customers will feel more valued for it.
Too Relaxed
If you’re a young and fresh company, then part of your charm might be that you’re not as stuffy as all the older, more traditional companies. However, this is such a thing as being too relaxed from time to time. Make sure you know when to show your fun side, and when to take things seriously.