How mindful is it for offline businesses to ignore online reputation?

As a successful brick and mortar store owner, you might be assured of the bright future of your business. But it is quite possible that your business may face some troubles in future by a damaged online reputation. And possibly, online reputation of your business may already be getting defamed behind your back while you keep ignoring the need of leveraging internet for your business.

If you aren’t living a life of Hermit these past few years, then you must be no stranger to customers’ changing behavior of checking everything online before using it. Give it an honest thought, you yourself google places on your smartphone before visiting them. But if you are a bit baffled that how on earth these things can affect you, especially when you have never created an online profile for your business, then let us clarify.

Unmanaged Online Business Profiles

Facebook and Google+ automatically create business profiles with geological details whenever someone mentions your store’s name on them. As more people hear about your business and check you online, they come across these unmanaged pages, and make an opinion about you. So, like it or not, your business has as an online presence and an online reputation. The more popular a business is, more are its chances. Obviously, you don’t want to anything associated with your well-reputed business to be left as “unmanaged”.

Occurrence of real world & their impact in the virtual world

For most, the math is as simple as – “You provide customer/clients good service, they will praise you. You provide bad service, they will criticize you.” However, all is not black & white when it comes to customer behavior. There are many things that your customers will not tell you out right (for not being rude), but will mention it to other people. And what better place they have than internet (social media, discussion forum, reviews sites, etc.) to share things in this day and age. Let us share a few real-life scenarios in this regard.

Customer Service

Generally in brick & mortar store, the scope of customer service, at best, is limited to after-sale service feedback. When the business happen through face-to-face interaction, most people tend to give good feedback even if they feel a bit uncomfortable or unsatisfied with the service or product. It is only when they are out among friends or on social media that they tell what they really think.

In such scenarios, while you feel content with good reviews and ratings on papers, your reputation slowly starts to degrade in the online world.

Your Social Activities

As the owner of a reputed brick & mortar store, your personal doings have a direct impact on your business. For example, you have a private medical practice, but out in public you are frequently seen smoking, drinking, and doing other activities that are socially improper. It would take seconds for people to share such things in the online world with thousands.

Your current clients may not leave you (given that your practice is good), but the new ones will definitely hesitate to come to you if you do not posts about your social doings in the online world.

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