Your brand’s reputation is how others feel about your brand—and those others can be anyone from potential or existing customers, partners, vendors, the media, stakeholders, shareholders, and the public at large. Every aspect of your business can have an impact on your brand reputation, including:
- Your customer service, from your in-store experience to your call center and how easy it is for customers to return products or share feedback on a service.
- The quality of your goods or services.
- The professional (and personal) life of any member of your team, especially your CEO, and other key leaders.
- The causes and nonprofit organizations you support.
- What your business publishes on social media and web.
- Content shared publicly about or referencing your company, including unfavorable press and client reviews that may or may not be true.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, your brand reputation is more vulnerable than ever. In our increasingly interconnected global society—where a single tweet or social media post can be amplified through a viral hashtag and become front-page news in a matter of hours—companies must understand the importance of maintaining a positive brand reputation.
It can take years to grow a solid customer base and a trustworthy business reputation—but only moments to watch that reputation crumble. And rebuilding a brand reputation is even more difficult than building it from scratch because you’re trying to dig out from a negative position rather than starting the process from zero.