Regaining Your Business Composure After A Reputational Knock

2/6/20


Business reputations can grow and falter all of the time, sometimes for unpredictable reasons. It can seem as though one odd or somewhat mistaken comment on social media can turn your business from reliable and relative unseen to causing national news in a matter of hours, especially when you consider silly social media blunders that are caused year to year.

No matter how your business received a reputational knock, it is very important to address and improve it. Many businesses can falter in this regard. For instance, in the infamous DiJourno Pizza social media scandal, the social media team decided the best strategy would be to apologize to every single person who complained of their blunder. This did nothing to strengthen their position, even though their heart was in the right place. You can imagine just how this contributed to the fire, leading to a correspondence storm that would have been perhaps best  dealt with by using reliable virtual headquarters so as not to overwhelm their team.

But how can you recover from this seemingly unavoidable downward spiral? We’d like to consider that together:

PR Management


PR management can be a supremely effective tool when trying to get to grips with managing your reputation once again. These reputational services can help you slowly drip-feed marketing information back into the mix, allow you to easily address prior problems not through apologizing to everyone or feeling as though the criticism was valid, but perhaps by making an appropriate change such as donating to certain charities. PR management can also help you retool your image to allow for loyal customers to stay with your firm despite this issue.

Redefining Your Approach


It’s important to accept that something has gone wrong if you found yourself in this situation, to begin with. To the extent that you can, understanding what went wrong and noting that this is not something to be followed again can be important. But more than that, understanding the root concerns, not just the reputational symptoms, can be worthwhile. Was your blunder an accidental political issue? Did you happen to prove that prior marketing spiel was just that, spiel? Or could it be that your products are in no way as reliable as they used to be and your cost-cutting approach has failed? When you focus on the root causes, you can find the best solutions.

New Promotions, New Movement


It can be worthwhile to keep up the forward momentum and try to continually promote what you have to offer in a manner that is time-sensitive, renewed, and has vigor. This can help you keep up the movement to the point where that initial dirt is brushed from your shoulder, and it can also alleviate false yet temporary outrage only found on platforms like Twitter. Be sure that the new promotions understand the prior complaints lodged against your firm because if you learn nothing from this process it truly has been a waste of time.

With this advice, we hope you can claw your business back from any reputational knock.