So, you are ready to hire ORM experts to manage your brand’s reputation online. Good thought. But have you listed down the considerations that you need to make while hiring your professional for the services?
Yes, before signing up a deal with your online reputation management experts, you must clear all your doubts. Maybe asking a few relevant questions can help you a lot in finding the best out of hundreds available online. Well, the process might be a bit tiring. But trust us, nothing can be better than getting the most effective person appointed for this job.
The questions remain the same even if you get in touch with an online reputation repair company. Just have a conversation with the experts who are being appointed for your job.
Let’s list down the questions that you need to ask.
5 Important questions to ask your ORM experts before hiring
1. What is the complete package of services you offer: This is the very first query that every business person should make while hiring the ORM experts from an agency. You should be aware of the complete package of services they are going to implement. Especially, if you are talking about your ORM campaign, you should learn about the services they offer.
Usually, a standard ORM campaign includes a plethora of services. These are review management, brand monitoring, suppression of negative statements, legal representation, positive PR content creation, and social media activity management.
Ask your experts whether they are going to perform all the above-mentioned necessary tasks. If it’s a yes, go for it.
2. How do you handle negative reviews: In managing brand reputation, negative reviews have a great significance. Any business dealing with customer activities has to face criticism and negative reviews. This lowers down the brand impression and negatively impact the brand reputation online.
Experts should have proficiency in handling the negative reviews smartly and professionally. Your customers are your key to success. Therefore, keeping your customers happy is your responsibility.
Make sure the ORM experts understand this and respond to the negative reviews politely and professionally. Professional online reputation management individuals prefer to reply to the bad reviews with an apologizing note. A sorry followed by a promising statement stating that the issue will be fixed soon can cheer up the customers and encourage them to shop more.
3. Will you actively monitor the brand: Not every ORM experts are specialized in monitoring the brand. But dear, this is very much important when you are serious about your brand reputation.
Monitoring the brand regularly gives you an idea about your brand performance online along with the audience’s behavior towards your brand. Experts must use the online tools like Google Alerts to get notification whenever any new comment or brand mention is added over the web.
The experts should have knowledge regarding how to keep an eye on brand performance. And this can only be possible when they have good hands on the online web monitoring tools.
4. What are the different ORM strategies you prefer: No online reputation management plan works without a proper ORM strategy. What it is your strategy – your next question is this.
A proper ORM strategy should include –
Paying attention to SEO and improving the website rankings.Encouraging positive reviews and suppressing negative comments.
Taking more care to the negative reviews.Sharing positive reviews on social media platforms.Using email marketing techniques to generate more reviews and leads.
Staying active on social media.
An experienced ORM professional must obey these strategies and help the brand to gain a good reputation score.
5. How many years of experience do you have: Years of experience do matter, even if you are appointing an expert or consulting with an agency. Ask your ORM individuals about their proficiency level. The more experienced, the better is their proficiency.
Appointing an amateur who is completely new in this field or someone with only a few months of experience can never come up with an up-to-the-mark report. Either they will require an expert’s help or they will take more time than usual. Find the individuals who are accustomed to this field and know how to manage the brand reputation following the trend. That will be a good idea indeed.
Final Thoughts
Questions are quite common. Probably, you already have made this in your mind. But sometimes, we really forget what to ask and what not to. As a consequence, we end up choosing the wrong professionals for the work.
We don’t want you to make such mistakes and regret later.
Markdown the questions you have already asked and make your hiring distilled clear.
In short, transparency is very much important when you are appointing someone for a vital job. From reputation management cost packages to efficiency in handling criticism, just make sure you nailed at everything. So, make your queries and start with the reputation management process.
