Back in October, I indicated it was important to move beyond monitoring reputation management and develop mechanisms and key performance indicators in the analysis of those monitors. I said that “A mistake may hurt a person or company, but other issues may reveal systemic problems that will only continue and potentially snowball into even larger concerns.”

Today, I’d like to describe why this analyzing is important. Say you’re a car manufacturer, and you sell lots of cars in one line. This line is not the most popular car on the road, but profits are healthy, crash testing ratings are solid, there are no recalls, no defects or workmanship that keeps your cars in the shop, and people are buying the latest model because they like the small design changes and improvements you’ve made over the previous year model that may still be on the lot.

Then, out comes a report that this otherwise fantastic vehicle line was the most stolen vehicle in the previous year. You’ve secured the shelf space on your brand, and the news won’t break into your branded search terms (though it may appear in the news results of universal search), but the news is also appearing on MSNBC online and offline, as well as car enthusiast blogs, forums, and all across the internet.

How do you respond, or do you not respond at all? This is where internal processes must be prepared for determining the threat level of a reputation problem. Is being the most stolen vehicle going to hurt sales? Or is it an indication that your car is popular and has attractive features? Or is your vehicle simply easier to break into than other vehicles? Quickly assessing what the report may or may not mean, and its shelf life for impact on your brand should guide the decision on whether to respond and engage.

What would you do?

Filed under: Reputation Management on Friday, February 8th, 2008 by Jacob Wolfsheimer |
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