Credible Brands in an Un-Credible World

Gartner analysts released a study last week that found that between 10 and 15 percent of online reviews will be fake by the year 2014. That’s right. The social currency people use every day on Amazon, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, IGN and elsewhere to make or break purchasing decisions are only going to get more and more unreliable as fake reviews proliferate.

The Quest for Meaningless Metrics

This could be avoided, but it’ll be on marketers to change their mindsets.

Too many brands are too obsessed with how they stack up to their competitors. This has led to a market of fake Facebook Page likes and Twitter followers. Now, businesses are offering a few dollars for a fake review from people who have never experienced the business and without appropriate disclosure.

There’s a segment of marketers who don’t care about value. They just want cosmetic numbers to reflect success or hide a lack of it.

They’re driven by meaningless metrics. They want more likes, followers and positive reviews online, even if it means they aren’t legitimate. The result is analysts predicting that fake social media ratings and reviews will result in “at least two Fortune 500 brands facing litigation from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the next two years.”

This is Our Fault

Marketers have proven that they aren’t necessarily ready for transparent third-party reviews, which led the FTC to create a guide for online endorsements and testimonials in advertising, which required bloggers and any online influencers to disclose anything they received in exchange for a review.

As a group, we’re tempted by the fact that with a few thousand dollars, we can turn what is a rather mediocre social media effort into what appears to be an astounding success by paying for fake reviews, likes or Twitter followers. It’s lazy marketing.

The risk of giving into that temptation is too great for the industry. Third-party reviews are one of the most credible forms of advertising at our disposal. Traditional advertising has lost a lot of credibility in the minds of consumers. We can’t afford to let this happen to online reviews as well.

Trusted Brands Will Win

The good news is that brands building legitimate consumer trust will stand out and win out.  

Brands that are able to encourage others to transparently share brand content and points of difference without being paid will stand out in a world of fake reviews. Unbiased brand mentions carry a lot of weight and can truly sway a consumer’s opinion one way or another.

Give people the reasons and the means to talk about and share a brand. It’s often not an easy task, but if it was, marketers wouldn’t see the need to buy fake credibility. The brands that put in the work will benefit from it.

The more brands adopt this mindset, the less likely Gartner’s prediction will come true. Brands can’t buy credibility. It has to be earned. That credibility comes from authentic third-party endorsements, not fake ones.

Fulfill Your End of the Social Customer Service Promise

Image Source: disZineSocial media opens up a lot of avenues for brands to connect with consumers, but like Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. Creating a social media presence for your brand means opening the doors to positive interactions as well as negative commentary, which is where brands can run into trouble.

Negativity will always find its way to you as unhappy consumers will use your and their personal platforms to call you out. It’s easy to ignore, delete and even block this type of content, but don't let temptation get the best of you. That doesn’t build trust in your brand or create relationships that can be leveraged over time. Consumers are smart, and brands behaving this way will lose all credibility in the social space and eventually, offline as well.

We know ignoring, blocking and deleting negativity will only make the problem worse, but how do we make it better?

Know the Situation

Dealing with a social media customer service issue isn’t the same as receiving a complaint through a phone call or email, where the conversation is private and between the brand and the consumer.

Social media is public, anyone can see the complaint of someone else at any given moment, which means it’s important to act swiftly and respond meaningfully. There are no hours of operation. The boundaries of social media customer service are non-existent.

Social customers bring different characteristics. They have a monitor and keyboard between themselves and brands, which means they have no fear. Why would they? When they call you out, your brand is guilty until proven innocent. They have time to research and contemplate interactions with brands. These customers are armed with knowledge and only respond to ingenuity. Attempting otherwise will only deepen a problem.

Seize the Opportunity

The first time you receive negative feedback from a customer online can be a bit scary, but don’t panic. That customer has simply served up an opportunity to make your relationship with him or her stronger, right any wrongs, share accurate information and showcase your brands points-of-difference. This is a public space and people are watching. The right approach means a positive interaction will affect more than just the customer with a problem, so take those detractors and arm them with the information and service to turn them to advocates!

Fulfill the Promise

Consumers expect a helpful response in the social space. It’s an unspoken rule. If you’re brand is out there, you’re able to address concerns and provide solutions (or at least should be).

Every issue is unique, which means every issue requires a different approach. However, there are some things you can do to set your brand up for a positive outcome:

• Don’t be a robot. Be competent, accessible at any time and personal. Consumers can see right through a standard, prepared response that doesn’t speak to them directly. Let them know that there’s a person behind a response who is thinking of them, eager to help and ready to address their individual problem.
• Personalize and customize. Address the customer by name, be professional (never get into an argument), customize the message and respond quickly (they need help).
• Provide a real solution. There’s no point in tiptoeing around a problem. Consumers will see right through it. Be straightforward and honest. You don’t have to disclose anything that will hurt your brand, but instead, provide the mechanisms and resources to help the customer. The key is to never leave the customer hanging. Always, leave them with a takeaway, whether it’s a resolution or next step.
• Take the Conversation Offline (when needed). Even if a customer service issue starts online, it doesn’t have to be resolved there. Under circumstances that include personal information, you don’t have control and the customer is a little irrational, or you have a resolution that you don’t want to be public, take the conversation offline. Give the customer the contact information (email, phone number) and name of who they should connect with. Don’t forget to ask them to post a follow-up to their original complaint to let others know that everything got taken care of if they're inclined to do so.

Consumers are online, and if you’re so lucky to have them interacting with you, they expect value in return. Part of that is proving yourself as a resource and partner. Do that to build trust, which will in turn lead to advocacy and long-term success.

Consumer Content Reflects the Offline Experience

Consumers are talking, and it probably isn't a surprise that nearly every business across the board has come up in online conversation at least one time or another. However, it can be a bit of a shock to brands when they start to listen to these conversations. There's usually some positive conversation that makes them feel pretty good, but that usually isn't the case 100% of the time.

The power of anonymity and distance has encouraged consumers to share their opinions about brands, products and services without holding back. For too long consumers have been burned by poor customer service and relatively few outlets to vent frustrations. Now, their opinions are out there in all of their glory, and those opinions usually carry weight when others who are considering a purchase research.

It's easy to get defensive when these come up. There's a desire to try to explain why things are the way they are or why something happened. After all, businesses are made of people who, for the most part, are trying the best they can to deliver the best product possible. It can be easy to take negative opinions personally.

However, the real value of all content, negative and positive, is that it may reveal something a brand could never see about itself otherwise.

Online Content is a Reflection of the Customer Experience
Brands touch consumers in countless ways. Whether you are a store a customer visits or a product a customer uses at home, the motivation to post online starts offline. When products or services fail miserably or perform remarkably, they are deemed worthy of an online mention.

Offline action breeds online dialogue, which means the conversation happening about a brand in the social space is only the symptom of something much deeper. The tweet about long lines in the store may mean there are problems at the operations level. The review about the camera easily breaking might reveal faulty manufacturing.

Online consumer generated content doesn't come out of nowhere. It starts with the offline experience.

Inform the Business to Grow the Business
There are certainly actions that can be taken to help a brand's online reputation, but without an inside-out approach, these efforts don't lead to loyalty and only coverup problems that will resurface.

The true value of listening is using what is heard to inform action to move forward and get better. Honesty can be tough to take, but it's only through honesty that true insights can be revealed.