Creating your business reputation

Submitted by: elmposter

The reputation of your business is the greatest factor determining the long term success of the entirety of your marketing efforts. Your reputation is recreated every day with every customer your business meets. However, you dont have just one business reputation, but many reputations which are created in the minds of customers who deal with you during your business movements. Equally important to comprehend that you have a reputation with people who have never done business with you but have heard about you from others.

A tune from Joan Jett from days gone by is called Bad Reputation. Joan was a great rocker of her time, but she also had a knack for marketing. She made herself as the bad girl of the rock world, and the song Bad Reputation proved a hit. In the ever edgy scene of alternative rock, a woman happy with her bad reputation was in demand. She probably fibbed a little with the words I dont give a damn about my bad reputation as she in fact cared much about her bad reputation, it was one of her best marketing advantages! She rode that image to glory.

Sadly for many of us, a bad reputation is not a viable marketing goal to grow our business. The few contradictions to this rule other than musicians might be trial lawyers, repo men, or bail bondsmen who are known and valued for their fierceness and underworld savvy. For the rest of the world it just doesnt work.

You must understand that each of your deeds, and everything your workers do, in relation to your business contributes to your reputation. Business has no Mulligans. You can work to make things right that might have make your business reputation falter. In fact, remedying difficulties appropriately can be a real opportunity. However, you will never change peoples memory of the events that caused someone to think negatively about your business.

Each experience you have with customers in your business has one of three results that affect your reputation. Of these results, two that are not pleasant, the other one is excellent!

The first one is an experience you have with a client, or potential client, where you dont embarrass your business or company, but you also dont stand out from anyone else. This may not be the worst outcome, but it is close. At best, you will be considered typical in the mind of a customer. The customer will probably forget you, but if they do remember theyll consider you as someone who was average last time.

Outcome number two occurs when you, or your employee, has committed a big enough error to make sure the customer is enraged at you. It can get no worse for your business. Along with chasing away a customer, you have make sure you have also lost anyone who listens to that customer when they talk about you. There is no way to calculate the full damage that will occur. If you as a business owner are aware that you have allowed this to transpire, then you have no right to complain about the negative impact it will have. However, nine times out of ten the business owner is completely unaware of what has happened if the issue happened when only an employee was present, or out of their personal interactions with the customer. You shouldnt think that dissatisfied clients will make time to announce what happened. Typically they just never come back and you have no way to make it right. If you learn of the problem, but neglect to fix it, then again you deserve the poor reputation it fuels. However, if you take the initiative to go to every length to right the situation, you will have made use of found an opportunity in business to show a customer that you value their loyalty and are willing to do what it takes to display interest.

The third result is what all business owners should seek in each interaction with others. Your goal is make the customers, and potential customers, believe that besides supplying top-class goods or services, you care deeply about how services or materials satisfy a need of the customer. It concerns gaining trust with your patrons so that they know you will always focus on filling their needs. After reaching this goal you know you have cultivated a loyal customer whos value dwarfs any purchase they make.

Aiding in the creation such loyal customers is our goal. Hopefully if you are concerned about growing your business based upon this approach you will give serious consideration to signing up for our services.

About the Author

BizRave Inc. provides marketing consulting and internet marketing services for small businesses. Please visit BizRave.com for more information and articles on customer relationship based marketing.

Article Source: Ad-Matrix.net