Using AI in reputation management
How your company can benefit from automated tools
A company’s reputation is of crucial importance nowadays. It is strongly influenced by customer reviews, discussions in social media and online reporting and has an enormous impact. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) opens up completely new fields of action here. In this specialist article, we take a look at the diverse applications of AI in reputation management and their impact on the business world.
Index
The importance of AI for reputation management
A positive reputation is invaluable for companies. It can strengthen customer trust, promote employee loyalty and attract investors. Conversely, a bad reputation can have serious consequences: falling sales, loss of image and even legal disputes. Successful reputation management therefore means actively shaping the public perception of the company and being prepared for potential crises.
Automated tools based on AI can be a great help here. By analyzing online comments and social media posts, they can identify negative developments at an early stage and initiate appropriate measures. However, there are limits here too: AI cannot capture all aspects of reputation, especially those that take place outside the digital space. A sensible implementation of AI in reputation management therefore requires a clear strategy and close cooperation between humans and machines.
Measures for successful reputation management
A company’s reputation can be influenced by various factors. These include customer reviews, social media posts and online reports. AI-based tools can be used to identify and minimize potential risks at an early stage. They monitor a company’s reputation and help to respond quickly to negative reviews or comments. In this way, damage to the brand can be averted. The targeted use of AI in reputation management can help companies to improve their reputation and strengthen it in the long term.
1. Regular monitoring
Through continuous media monitoring, service employees as well as marketing and communication experts track current reviews of their products or services in real time. This allows them to react quickly to positive or negative feedback. Reviews also provide valuable insights into customer needs. By monitoring feedback, marketing managers can identify trends and adapt offers accordingly.
2. Analysis of review portals and search results pages
Analyzing review portals and search results often provides valuable insights into customer opinion and a company’s reputation. Especially during the pandemic, many retail companies had to deal with significant supply bottlenecks, which led to uncertainty, annoyance and negative customer feedback. Through thorough analysis, trends and patterns in customer reviews can be identified at an early stage so that targeted measures can be taken.
Given the variety of review platforms, it is crucial to develop a well thought-out reputation management strategy. By using suitable reputation management platforms (Birdeye, Reputation+, ReviewTrackers, etc.), all relevant platforms and portals can be monitored in a clear dashboard so that no review is overlooked. All reviews are also saved in a history. This means that communication managers can also access them at a later date.
The monitoring covers over 20 review platforms and also enables a comparison with competitors. This allows companies to assess their position in the industry and evaluate their performance in comparison to others. AI can also help with sentiment analysis by recognizing trends and moods in social media or other platforms at an early stage.
Search results contribute significantly to the online visibility of companies. It is therefore advisable to regularly search public reporting for important keywords and keyword combinations in order to determine the current status. With some reputation management services, for example, relevant keywords can be stored in the tool. A traffic light system then shows in the overview whether positive or negative reporting on the keywords predominates. The corresponding URL can then be called up with a click and analyzed in more detail.
3. Building up positive content and reviews
Companies build up the trust of potential customers through many positive reviews. With the help of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), companies can gain a quick insight into customer satisfaction in order to derive suitable measures.
The key figure measures customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty and faithfulness to a company. There are various methods to determine the NPS. A survey is often conducted by email or directly on the website. One retail customer was able to generate 1,700 additional reviews within nine months using the survey. The AI identified satisfied customers and forwarded them to the review portals.
Another example of the use of AI is the area of content and text creation. In the past, content was often created by editors in order to be more visible in search results. Platforms such as ChatGPT now enable faster content creation. However, AI-generated content must be carefully reviewed and adapted to ensure that it meets the desired quality standards.
4. Community management: interaction with customers
Transparent and authentic communication with the community is crucial for successful and sustainable review management. A dialog at eye level promotes active participation and creates emotional customer loyalty. Companies can proactively build a good reputation in the community through convincing storytelling.
Service employees should also respond appropriately to criticism. A strategy for complaints is crucial here. For many companies, including Disney, the H.E.A.R.D. method, which consists of five steps, has proven its worth:
- Hear: listen to customers when they have a complaint
- Empathize: Show compassion and understanding for the anger
- Apologize: Apologize – but not just in general terms. The apology should address the specific point of criticism.
- Resolve: Find a way to solve the problem together. This no longer has to be done publicly: Communication can be shifted to a private channel.
- Diagnose: Analyze the problem and develop a strategy to prevent it from happening again.
Although many companies are aware of the relevance of community management, it is often neglected in day-to-day business. This is where generative AI can help. For some services, for example, an AI-supported comment generator enables quick and targeted responses to all reviews. It also helps users to strategically generate new reviews in order to strengthen the brand image. By using AI in community management, companies can effectively manage their online reputation and build positive customer relationships.
Conclusion
For effective reputation management, it is important to keep up to date with the latest technology. AI-supported solutions can help to strengthen and protect a company’s reputation. This not only saves companies time and resources, but also benefits from positive customer relationships. Investing in such solutions is therefore essential to keep companies successful and competitive.
An important factor in reputation management is responding quickly to negative comments or reviews on the internet. AI can automatically provide suitable response suggestions and efficiently evaluate large amounts of data on a company’s own online reputation. Overall, the use of AI in reputation management offers numerous advantages and should therefore not be underestimated.
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