Reputation management for contractors – One of the things I hear a lot from contractors when I bring up negative reviews that I find online is that they either never knew about them, or figured they couldn’t defend themselves.
This becomes especially hard for contractors who are either technophobes or don’t have the time to allocate to monitor what is being said about them (good or bad) online.
So, here are my questions to you, trying to defend yourself from homeowners everyday
- If you had a service that actively monitored what’s being said about you, your competition, your company and your industry across the web, would you use it?
- If you could be updated within minutes of someone either praising your company or ripping it to shreds on Facebook, in forums and on review sites, would you pay for it?
Google Alerts is reputation management for contractors 101
Google Alerts is pretty good, and should take care of most contractors. But it doesn’t get updates from Facebook (where more people spend their time online today more than any other website) as well as forums and other review sites. So what winds up happening is that you only “think” you’re covered.
If guarding your company’s image not only from homeowners but from your competitors is something you worry about, then maybe a one better program is what you need? But wouldn’t you also want to know when people were saying something good too?
Reputation management isn’t just about paying attention to Mrs. Jones when she crushes you because your dirty boots left stains on her carpet. Reputation management is about getting in front of Mrs. Jones and thanking her when she says something good about you too. That’s how you build brand loyalty, and this type of proactive approach to social media marketing should be a cornerstone to any marketing program.
But what about when it is bad?
So let’s say you did piss off Mrs. Jones, and now she is ripping you all over the web, and each person she turns away from your company is costing you thousands, wouldn’t you want a solution that could suppress this info? That would have to be a value added feature that you would be interested in right?
I ask because I don’t know. I don’t know how interested you are in protecting your name on the web. I don’t know how interested you are in trying to clear up any issues you have when they arise. I imagine you have a passing interest in the topic if you are still reading, but is it something you would invest in on a monthly basis, and if so how much?
So…If I get programmers involved and take the time to do this right, and I can:
- Provide you with a reputation management solution specifically for contractors, would you be interested?
- Secondly, if I developed a solution that would help you attack negative reviews, would you be interested in that?
- Understand would be a two-tiered solution that would involve reputation management and a negative review solution.
That’s why I need you…
If this sounds like a good idea, let me know. If it sounds like a crappy idea let me know that too. If you think you already have the bases covered then I will drop it and move on. But I think between the monitoring service and the adverse review service, there should be a market for one or the other or both. But you have to tell me. I am not going to just go get this thing done without a better understanding of what you need.
Tell me in the comments or in an email if you think this program is for you or not. And think about this, just one negative comment has the ability to not only ruin your reputation online, but to stop people in their tracks who were thinking about doing business with you.
8 responses to “Reputation Management For Contractors”
Darren,
I think that’s a SHIT HOT idea! You’re right on the money, I’m always walking around with the idea that someone could be badmouthing me on that there interweb thing!
You’re also right about the time factor, I think I’ve actually had the time to sit down and search it. As it was, that was 3 AM one night I couldn’t sleep from worrying about all this crap!
I’m not too sure if I can help you with pricing though since I’m just a start up and there’s not lots of cash floating around but I would definitely pay for that service!
I hope this helps you as much as you help me with all your sage advice.
Keith
Thanks Keith for the response!
I appreciate you checking in. So let me ask you the question this way; if I can get you what I talk about in the article, would you pay $10 bucks a month, then a flat fee to get negative reviews worked on? Or would you pay one flat fee of say $29 a month to monitor and protect at the same time? I ask because the protection would be an add-on service that would either need to be paid for when needed (negative reviews) or to have a it included in the service?
Thanks again, and happy the site helps you!
Hi Darren,
Sorry for the delay in answering your question, hadn’t realized I could answer you.
To answer your question though, I would pay the ten bucks a month for monitoring but would prefer, I think to decide on a case by case basis if I would like to handle it myself or rely on an expert to handle it for a pre-determined fee. Hope this helps.
Keith
Dear Mr. Slaughter,
My thoughts are the same as Mr. McGorlick’s. And to follow up on your question to him, I believe I’d prefer to pay a lower amount, get notified, and handle it myself. So, basically only pay for notifications (positive and negative)… maybe a report twice a week. But with that said, I’d be willing to pay more than $10 a month for it. I think $25 per month for two very basic reports per week telling me when and where my company, myself and other key people in our organization are mentioned.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate your feedback! To add a one better to your reporting, I am thinking doing almost real-time reporting for either good or bad will be the best way, so whatever I do, that will be part of it. So, I can count you in?
Thanks again!
Reputation management is important, difficult to monitor for the contractor and of great importance to keeping good business headed one’s way. It is easy for a dissatisfied customer, vendor or for that matter, competitor, to write negative comments for purposes that primarily benefit them. Therefore, I feel it it is important to monitor one’s internet presence and address negative issues. A monitoring fee of $10 monthly and a fee to address issues when elected makes sense to me.
Thanks Bill for stopping by and participating! I appreciate your feedback.
I would be willing to pay $10 a month. maybe your monthly fee could be tired so that lager contractors that have a larger presents on the web and will require more monitoring (and the service will be more valuable) can pay more. And the small startup guys can benefit from the service and you can have them as clients as they grow to be the bigger contractors.
I like the idea of low monthly and charge per issues resolved. I will probably address the issues myself, unless you can have a program that can completely remove the bad review!