The Do's and Don'ts of Building a Powerful Brand Reputation
The reputation you have with your clients or patients is one of the most important aspects of owning a business.
Brand reputation can easily fluctuate or be tarnished, so you must remain consistent and positive while interacting with current and potential clients or patients. It takes time and effort to build a recognizable brand, but it’s possible.
First, you have to identify what audience your brand is targeting. Honing in on the specific demographics of the people you want to reach is the key to help you create a branding strategy to gain more clients and patients. Consider the age group, gender, income level, education level, and other details to figure out the best ways to target those people.
We’re here to teach you how to build a brand reputation that is liked, respected, and accredited by your clients. Here is our list of the do’s and don’ts of building a powerful brand reputation.
10 Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Powerful Brand Reputation
Don’t: Attack Clients for Leaving Negative Feedback
As a business owner, you do everything you can to make sure each and every person that comes into your practice is satisfied. But, sometimes there will be people that are not happy with a particular aspect of your brand and you don’t want to negatively engage with those people.
It’s important to stay level-headed because that’s a reflection of you and your practice. We’ve probably all witnessed businesses arguing with customers on social media once or twice and you never want to go down that route.
When people leave negative feedback about their experience at your practice on websites like Yelp or Google, it’s available for millions of people to see. After they read their review, they may form a negative opinion about you without ever stepping foot in your office. The internet is forever so you should be conscientious about how you respond.
Do: Remain Professional and Set Guidelines for Responding
Remember, you are a business that is providing a service for someone, so if they aren’t satisfied, take this time to reach out to them and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
If you are upset after reading negative feedback, step away from your computer before you hit send. Avoid tainting your brand image at all costs. Respond to them publicly and apologize for any bad experience that they may have had, then contact them privately so that you can two can come to a mutual decision that will make both parties happy.
Respond in a timely manner so they know you value them as a client. Timing is crucial for businesses in today’s world when people expect things almost instantly. So, don’t wait for weeks to respond to a bad review.
If you have new patients or clients often, try to schedule a specific time to monitor your reviews and reply. If you cannot do it every day, once a week should help you stay on top of the latest responses.
Whether it’s you, your office manager, or someone else on your staff that is monitoring your ratings, everyone should be well-versed on the guidelines you’ve set in place for how to respond.
Don’t: Make Promises That You Can’t Keep
When you tell someone you’re going to do something, it’s crucial for your brand reputation that you stay true to your word. We know it sounds cliche, but honesty really is the best policy! If you tell a client or patient what you plan to do, they will be expecting that you will do it.
For example, if you own a chiropractic office and you send your patients email an email saying that if they refer a friend to your practice, they’ll get 30% off their next visit, and they do it, the next appointment they book with you should be discounted automatically.
If they were to arrive for their scheduled visit and you inform them that you will not be giving them a discount, that will cause problems with you and your patient. If you don’t keep your promises, that creates distrust with your brand and your patients.
Do: Keep Your Word
When your patients and clients trust you and your product, they’re confident that you’ll come through every time. It reflects on your business as a whole when you do exactly what you said you will. One brand strategy tip that can be helpful to make sure you keep your promises is to create a list of goals and expectations.
Every staff member at your practice should be meeting these expectations to keep your clients and patients pleased.
Don’t: Forget About Your Offline Reputation
There is a huge emphasis on the importance of protecting your online brand reputation on social media and in the digital world. But what about in person?
If you interact well with your clients and patients online, that’s great! You should make sure that they have the same experience with your business when they meet you in person as well.
If you are genuine, helpful, and reliable when they’re connecting with you through social media, they will expect the same thing when they speak to you on the phone or come in for a visit.
Do: Be Consistent On and Offline
It’s important that your brand personality be the same online and in the office. Do you want your brand voice to be professional, friendly, or informative? Establish your voice and remember this for every interaction you have with a client.
It can be very easy for your clients or patients to spot when you aren’t being authentic. Practice consistency with your brand so people always know that what they see is what they get. Provide them with quality customer service on and offline.
It should be a positive experience for new and current clients whenever they come to your practice, so you can build trust. Some tips that your business can use to provide excellent customer service are:
- Utilize automatic email responders
- Always reply to customer grievances in a timely fashion
- Be as transparent as possible with clients
- Practice clear communication
- Be sure that all your customer service representatives are aware of the guidelines for how to deal with each and every situation.
Don’t: Just Post Content and Go
Creating quality content that your audience will be happy with takes time, so when people on social platforms engage with it, don’t ignore them. Each of your social accounts should be full of content that your practice has created as well as show that you communicate with your following.
For example, let’s say you own a veterinary practice and post a video of a dog walking again after being in a cast for several weeks and it receives high engagement.
The more comments you get, the more you should be communicating with those people. Clients like when you talk back to them. It lets them know they are being heard.
Do: Create a Community and Engage With Your Audience
You want people to interact with the content you post online. This will increase your reach, likes, comments, and
followers, all of which are great things! Whatever industry you’re in, join or create your own community specifically for those people.
When you have an online community, you can go to these people to test out any ideas you might have for new products, services, or anything else you would like to run by them before executing it.
The people in your community are loyal and would make excellent ambassadors for your brand. Word-of-mouth is still a great way to produce more business so when your community members speak highly of you or post positive things about your practice online, it encourages others to schedule an appointment as well.
Don’t: Forget Who You Are
Your brand is an integral part of your business. It should be considered when making any major decisions about your practice.
When you do email campaigns, execute your content plan, and build your social media strategy, think about each of these coordinate with your brand.
Do: Stay True to Your Brand
Above all, remain true to yourself and your brand! As you develop your branding strategy, you should align it with who you are as a business. Building a mission statement is a helpful reminder to keep you on track with the objectives you’ve set in place.
Building a Powerful Brand Reputation
Formulating a solid branding strategy can take you from a beginner to a major competitor among those in your local market. Be consistent in all that you do and integrate your brand into every aspect of your business to give your clients the best user and customer service experience possible.
For more information on branding your practice, check out our other resources
5 Ways to Rapidly Increase Brand Awareness
Branding Tips for Optometrists
How to Encourage Clients to Leave Feedback and Strengthen Your Online Reputation
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