One of the most critical pieces franchisors face in today’s online world is what the market thinks of their product or service. Usually comments about a product or service tend to be on the negative side because it is an outlet for people that could not solve their problems with the company.
A high growth franchisor may not be aware that irate customers may have just flamed them on a chat board or one of their franchisees got skewered on Angie’s list, Yahoo or some other forum. Franchisors are not insensitive jerks, they just have too many pieces to juggle as they launch their concept. Also, the reputation of a franchisor is the #1 concern of a potential franchisee. What the market is saying about you and how you handle that feedback and make adjustments is the highest priority if you want to bring in truckloads of new franchisees and customers.
Growth is messy, chaotic and brutal when online reputation management is concerned. Growth is not the friend of great reviews typically.
I found a great solution. I had a great chat with Neal Creighton the CEO of RatePoint. They have a very low cost solution to solve this problem. Their system not only aggregates the online comments the market posts about you, but has a proactive way to turn negative reviews into positive ones and optimizes the results for the search engines to spread the good news. Online trust and reputation seems to be in Neal’s DNA. He was one of the Founders of GeoTrust, which today is the 2nd largest provider of identity and online security certificates.
Having a way to solve the problems is the key. I read almost all doctors that are hit with a malpractice lawsuit is a result of how they dealt with the problem, not causing the problem. Doctors that take more time with patients are sued less. I believe that applies with online reputation management as well. The companies that spend the most effort dealing with upset customers will have the best online reputations. Franchisors with high positive feedback tend to sell more franchises.
Invest 2 minutes and go to http://ratepoint.com. I read a fantastic report on several franchises that use their system and the results they had made the RatePoint fee a free lunch.
Listen to 7 minute Interview with Neal
2 comments:
Brilliant. This capitalized on my greatest need as a consumer - to be heard.
How do they handle negative feedback. Do they publish that too along with resolution? I admire a company more when they publish and address disgruntled feedback more than when they just post the glowing stuff.
~Nan
Great post. I actually believe that in the near future, most companies will have to have at least 1 person (obviously depending on the size of the company), to monitor the online reputation of the company. Nowadays, you simply can't ignore blogs, forums and other social sites anymore.
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