Reputation management, as per traditional dictionary definition has been the exercise of public relations side of a Brand to control impression that it’s target customer groups (should) have of it. Direct indicator of your reputation management exercise has always been sales figures and any unusual drop in chart should warrant attention before it goes out of hand.
Much part of a Brand’s impression of reputation is through online touchpoints these days as their customer’s purchase journey evolves continuously and offline touchpoints become more intertwined with them.
Every Brand has internal teams as well as professional agencies dedicated to managing their overall impression and reputation and specifically online impression and reputation. However, what many miss out on is to ensure measuring efficacy of all this exercise or to take steps at right time to make amends to improve or control impression.
Why?
Social media campaigns, customer feedback/ reviews mechanism, discounts and sale routines, etc. or any such exercises without actually measuring their efficacy to understand constantly evolving consumer behavior (and specifically consumer groups of interest to your Brand) and without linking them directly reputation management, is a leaking bucket and wasteful expenditure. That is why gathering Consumer Insights as part of reputation management is important.
When?
Ideally this should be a continuous cycle of Act, Review, Confirm, Repeat reflecting in intensity of your Brand’s growth plans to have grip on changes with what works and what stops to work. If not, then before new product launces and market entry, as reflection of specific initiates planned or carried out for improvement or to better understand highs and lows of sales figures.
How?
Though trend of your sales figures is a direct indicator of the efficacy of your Brand’s online reputation management exercise, it isn’t the only scale and also unless confirmed through quantifiable consumer insights, it can point to wrong root causes.
A number of strong Consumer Insights tools like Mystery Shopping, Intercept Audits, Integrity Surveys, and Behavior Surveys for Consumers… and Discreet Investigation into Ethics & Conduct, Process & Policies Adherence, Behavioral Aspects, Etc. of Employees can be used to identify root causes and gain actionable inputs to bring about required correction.
To understand more on the topic of Consumer Insights or to discuss you specific business case, you can get in touch with our Research & Investigation Team at Risc Curis using contact options.
