A few years ago, the answer to this loaded question was what kept business executives awake at night: How likely are you to recommend our brand to your friends and family? And so the hunt for the best possible Net Promoter Score took flight.
This decisive question teemed on the understanding that customers who highly recommend your offering to their friends or family would become the ideal advocate for your company, potentially helping you generate hundreds and thousands of dollars in sales over time. Marketers strive to create a tight-knit community for their customers where their loyalists become walking billboards. The logic is simple: A loyal customer who feels a deep sense of belonging to your brand will begin to showcase it in their personal life. The brand has become a part of their identity, and their identity is something that they wish to portray both online and offline. They may do this by wearing company merchandise, such as the Harley-Davidson motto jacket. Or they will display their undying admiration for your miracle weight loss product that has changed their life around on their YouTube channel, blog and social media outlets. Of course, there’s nothing better than good old word-of-mouth, but with the growing need to be present online, the lightning-fast flow of information through the digital sphere has become critical for companies. Let it be good news, they pray. As one or two bad blows to your brand can bring your life’s work tumbling down.
What the Net Promoter Score (NPS) fails to do is change the way consumers perceive your brand. Company executives and high-level managers would measure their NPS as an indicator of their brand’s health and customer satisfaction. However, what if that NPS was in need of a big turnaround? That’s where Online Reputation Management (ORM) comes into play.
ORM influences customers, which is exactly what you need to do to improve your NPS. More and more customers shop online, where your digital reputation becomes imperative to whether or not they’ll make the purchase. According to the 2017 Global Online Consumer Report conducted by one of the big four accounting firms, KPMG, 49% of consumers that visited a store searched online reviews while in the store. Millennials are more likely than Baby Boomers to be influenced by recommendations spoken by their peers or via social media outlets. Before even visiting the company website, 56% of both Generation X and Millennial online shoppers conducted online search for recommendations and reviews compared to 52% of Baby Boomers.
User-generated reviews published on social media sites and company websites have become difficult for companies to control. Yes, a company can decide to banish reviews from their Facebook page but that will only contribute to customer suspicion. Managers’ incapacity to control what is said about their company can take a toll on how their reputation is viewed.
ORM experts have established processes that help suppress the bad news that have begun to overweigh the good that their company has to offer. They can highlight the good and abolish the bad with their proprietary, proven methods. If the factors that influence your NPS hold any significance to you—as they should since such a score can directly affect your bottom line—then hiring a professional ORM team to rid you of your reputational problems is the way to go.