The way that customers view your business is vital. If people don’t have a positive perception of you, it doesn’t matter how good your products are, they won’t buy from you. A single piece of bad press can send a company into a hole that’s difficult to climb out of. There is an infinite number of things that could damage your company’s image, some more common than others. These are the things you need to watch out for.
Bad Reviews
This is the most obvious one and it’s a problem for all companies. There are always going to be at least a few people that will give you a bad review, even if the product and service are amazing. The occasional bad review isn’t the end of the world but customers will still be put off. There’s nothing you can do once the review is up because removing it will just harm your image even more. What you should be doing instead is highlighting the good reviews on your site and addressing the bad ones. If you post a reply to the bad ones apologizing for the problem and offering a solution, that should put people’s mind at ease.
Loss Of Personal Data
If you’re selling products online customers are trusting you with their personal data, if you lose that data you’re in big trouble. Not only will you be on the wrong side of the law, data breaches are likely to make the news. No new customers will want to hand their details over to a company that can’t be trusted. Make sure that you’re using data loss prevention services to protect your IT systems. Cyber criminals are constantly updating their techniques to stay ahead of new security software so it’s important that you’re updating your software regularly as well.
Environmental Issues
Consumers are increasingly concerned with environmental issues and they play a bigger role in their buying decisions than ever. People are often willing to pay slightly more for a product if they can be assured that it’s been made in an environmentally responsible way, particularly the packaging. If you’re found to be producing products in a way that’s harmful to the environment, that can really harm your sales. Make sure that your manufacturing processes are low impact and you’re always using recyclable packaging.
A Bad Website
Your website is the modern day version of a shop front in some ways. It’s the first thing that a customer sees and if they don’t like it, they’ll move on right away. The way that your site is designed says a lot about you so you need to make sure that you’re sending the right message. If you aren’t thinking about the target audience that you’re trying to appeal to, you could convey the wrong image. For example, if you’re trying to appeal to a younger audience you should go for a minimalist design, but that won’t work for the older generation. You also need to make sure that it runs smoothly because if you’ve got a poorly maintained website, people will assume that your company as a whole is poorly maintained.
Image is everything in business so always be on the lookout for these things that could ruin yours.
