Managing Your REPUTATION Before Someone Else Does it for You
PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Definition and Strategic overview Pitfalls and Examples Do s and Do Not s and Tools to Use Q&A Opportunity
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS UNDER ATTACK
MANAGE IT OR LOSE IT Managing your Reputation requires constant attention to build, sustain and defend If you are not proactively engaged to manage your reputation, external events will drive it for you
REPUTATIONS ARE AT RISK 67% of top executives see their companies reputations as vulnerable From 2010 2014, more than half of the number one Most Admired American companies in various industries lost their number one position within five years Source: Weber Shandwick, Safeguarding Reputation
REPUTATION RISK FACTORS Financial Irregularities Unethical Behavior Executive Misconduct Security Breaches Environmental Violations Product Recalls Customer Complaints Employee Complaints Source: Weber Shandwick, Safeguarding Reputation
VALUE OF CORPORATE REPUTATION Represents up to 47% of American companies net worth according to Federal Reserve 93% of CEOs believe corporate reputation is important or extremely important to consumers and investors Source: Hill and Knowlton 2014 CEO Survey
HITS TO CORPORATE REPUTATION IMPACT BOTTOM LINE Customer Retention/Acquisition Shareholder Value Employee Retention/Recruitment Community Relationships Government Relationships Future Credibility
WHAT IS REPUTATION MANAGEMENT? Managing the trust bank o McDonald s focuses on trying to have enough deposits in the trust bank to weather any negative incidents Inherent in the way you do business every day
Reputations reflect behavior you exhibit day in and day out through a hundred small things. The way you manage your reputation is by always thinking and trying to do the right thing every day. ~ Ralph Larsen, CEO Johnson & Johnson
WHAT IS REPUTATION MANAGEMENT? How your organization is perceived by key stakeholders o Employees, customers, media, investors, government agencies, suppliers, analysts, etc. Part of your Brand Management Strategy o The actions you take that bring your Brand to life Your products, services, employees, leadership, community activities, advertising, communication, performance, innovation, etc.
MANAGING YOUR REPUTATION? Not just something you turn to in a crisis o For Best Results Apply Early and Often Involves more than typical public relations o Can t be done in a vacuum o Not just sending out press releases about company s good deeds o Two-way process that requires strategy, monitoring and reaction
KEY PLAYERS IN MANAGING REPUTATION CEO and Board of Directors o Official Face of the Institution, Leads the charge Marketing/Public Relations o Deliver the strategies and tools, monitor and react All Employees o Deliver the brand every day
SOCIAL MEDIA CREATES NEW DYNAMIC Reputation Management more difficult with Social Media o Everyone is a member of the Press o One bad customer experience broadcast across the Internet expands exponentially User Generated Content (UGC) now allows public to create more content about you than you create yourself according to IDC market research
Time to Take Charge of Your Reputation
FOUR STEPS 1. Monitor 2. Assess and React 3. Measure 4. Drive
MONITOR YOUR REPUTATION Keep an ear to the ground and create a warning system before problems erupt o Formal Market Research o Internal Feedback Concerns of sales, front line, president, Board o Customer Feedback Complaints, comment cards, surveys, focus groups, attrition rates
MONITOR YOUR REPUTATION Monitoring the Public Domain o News coverage print, broadcast, radio o Media Monitoring Services (Vocus, Burrelles, Cision, PRNews) Particularly watch target media
MONITOR YOUR REPUTATION Monitor Web Postings o Blogs, chat threads, consumer review sites (Epinions, Angie s List), Twitter, local search sites (Citysearch, Yahoo!Local) o Use tools to aggregate info in one portal o Many free tools available Google Alerts, Technorati, backtype.com o Note: Two great articles on free web monitoring resources are available and will be sent to you via email upon request.
METHODS TO LISTEN ONLINE Quick Search o Keyword search using sites that aggregate search engines o Addictomatic, Hittery, Google blogsearch, Technorati, Twingly Automated Email Alerts o Recurrent keyword search report sent immediately or at set time o Google Alerts, Tweetscan, Yahoo Alerts Dashboards o One page resource to review all your mentions from across the web o igoogle, Pageflakes RSS Readers o One location allows you to pull feeds from multiple websites to create your own online content magazine o Google Reader, Bloglines Source: Neil Williams, MissionCreep
ASSESS BEFORE YOU REACT Assess the potential impact of the threat and scale your response accordingly o What is the relevance of this threat to your target? o Expertise or influence of the blogger/author o Number of users, page views o Is site/author followed or quoted in traditional media o Is site/author followed or linked to by your competitors
ASSESS BEFORE YOU REACT Likelihood of going viral o Entertaining content o Easy to share o Newsworthy or shocking o Relatable across broad spectrum
ASSESS BEFORE YOU REACT Need for speed in your response time o Is the chatter growing quickly? o If concern is growing, provide a preliminary response to identify you are aware of the problem and working on resolution o Take time to formulate a more thorough response and provide more detail in a timely manner
SCALE YOUR RESPONSE Scale the level of your response and the number of channels to the situation Issue contained to one site/blogger o Respond to the source site Issue contained to smaller group of concerned bloggers and customers o Respond to source site and through company channels (website, employees, customer communication) Issue no longer contained and permeating multiple sites or media o Respond to source site, use company media, proactively contact traditional media with strategic formalized response
REACT Do s and Do Not s of Responding o DO actually listen to concerns and consider solutions o DON T respond to everything without assessing threat o DO assign someone responsibility to react and give authority to act quickly if needed o DO take time to consider your response and the implications o DON T just refute and repeat negatives gear your response to the positive actions you are taking
REACT Do s and Do Not s of Responding o DO use multiple communication channels including employees, board members, company website and customer communication o DON T arm employees with scripts without genuine proof points and true understanding o DO identify yourself as a company representative o DON T post false reviews or comment on a thread as a customer
MEASURE Chart Key attributes of your reputation over time to identify patterns o Identify key messages in news coverage o Classify stories as positive, negative, neutral o Categorize and track complaints and praise o Track volume of calls to 800 number, comment cards, customer service emails o Solicit feedback from employees and executives regularly
DRIVE Managing your Reputation needs Strategic Focus o Not just a reactive process o Use feedback to establish a strategy to build your reputation Consistently see positive response to X? Build that into your brand attributes Consistently see negative postings regarding Y? Develop team to address improvements
DRIVE Basic Branding o Ensure employees embrace your values and deliver on the brand every day o Communicate your values in all of your interactions o Demonstrate authenticity and integrity in all of your business activities o Communicate, communicate, communicate with transparency
DRIVE Identify Influencers o Use Monitoring research to identify who is talking about your organization and who is listening o Integrate this key audience into proactive messages about your Brand Target them for news about your company Gear announcements as solution-oriented and geared toward their needs o Don t commercialize or over promote
EXAMPLES Comcast o YouTube video of employee asleep on the job gets 1 million views and wins award for Dumbest Moments in Business. o Comcast responded to this incident with an apology o Comcast seemed to ignore festering customer service complaints and anti-comcast sites previously o Currently has added web monitoring customer service position to respond to online criticisms and facilitate problem resolution
Source: Money.CNN.com
EXAMPLES Home Depot o MSN Money columnist blogs about poor customer service at Home Depot and spurs 10,000 responses from disgruntled customers o Home Depot responds within a week with apology from CEO and details about internal steps being taken to improve customer service o Forthright response quiets complaints quickly
EXAMPLES Kraft Foods o Lawsuit filed to force Kraft to remove trans fats from Oreos or stop marketing them to kids makes national news o Kraft quickly announced efforts were already underway to remove trans fats from all products o Kraft had been aware of the trans fat issue and working on solution for years which aided responsiveness and timeliness
EXAMPLES Comcast o YouTube video of employee asleep on the job gets 1 million views and wins award for Dumbest Moments in Business. o Comcast responded to this incident with an apology o Comcast seemed to ignore festering customer service complaints and anti-comcast sites previously o Currently has added web monitoring customer service position to respond to online criticisms and facilitate problem resolution
Q&A SESSION
KEY TAKE HOME POINTS Become involved you must manage your reputation Be Authentic build your reputation by doing, not just saying Shape Reputation with the involvement of Senior Management Deliver Reputation with front line employees
EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO EVERY SINGLE DAY IS ALL ABOUT THE MEMBER!
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