Revive the company’s image after assessing problems and building layered approaches to rectify any situation. If recovering from a crisis or revitalizing brand interest, various ways exist for businesses to boost engagement. Mistakes occur or employees provide imperfect customer service, or a delivery was delayed: all lead to customer complaints.
Minor errors are a part of doing business. But, some mistakes damage more than others. Data breaches reveal customer information, offensive posts are shared online, or continued poor customer services can destroy company reputation. Winning back customer trust can sometimes take more than a sincere apology. If your business seems to be struggling with a PR or image issue, then there are ways by which you can fix it. If you are trying to pull yourself up after a crisis or simply trying to generate interest in the brand, here are some steps to follow to boost customer engagement and build trust.
Assess Severity of the Problem
If you notice reduced foot traffic or consistently decreasing online web traffic is, while negative reviews increase or you must address a specific PR crisis involving employee theft. Whether you have identified your business’s image issue or not, you need to first discover how bad things are. Tackle this step by figuring out customer expectations compared to your business reality to meet expectations.
The reputation-reality difference information could help you decide what changes have to be made to regain customer trust. Experts note that clarifying the degree of brand damage enables either a slow-and-steady approach to revive brand image, or the “silver bullet” solution. Include your teams in your rebranding plans to unite everybody and have them support your efforts. Training them in your brand standards or refresher training of your original image will be beneficial.
Plan your media strategy by owning up and going on the offensive:
Once you assess regaining customer trust, build appropriate media strategies like key messaging, and reaching out to former/ potential customers, with credible communications. Start with key messaging. Should you proactively issue statements, or retire from public view before re-launching the brand? There are three options while planning the media strategy. When your brand has faltered, acknowledge facts and own up the mistake. Customers will respect you for accepting responsibility by making amends.
Confirm brand positions: If the fault is not yours, stand up for your brand. Remember Johnson & Johnson’s response to Tylenol tampering incidents by confirming care for customers, mention values critical to your company, rather than accepting blame and risk further damages. If your brand is victimised by disinformation or misinformation, work with the media to reduce brand damage. Use trustworthy and established news sources to restore credibility, or hire a good PR firm. To combat fake information about your brand, select credible spokespersons, with simple and straightforward messages, and user-generated content, for the authentic organic feel.
Starting inside out
Your employees are your best representatives and must back-up your image revival, as mere marketing or PR alone cannot help regain customer trust. Include team members in the rebranding process to unite all efforts. Offer training in new brand standards (or refresher training). Redesigning the customer and employee experience simultaneously as the customer experience is only equal to the employee experience. For customers to love your company, offer benefits, incentives, and positive feedback to assist team members love your company.
