Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s expensive. Invest in Online Brand Protection
Source: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com
The internet can be either a boon or boondoggle to companies when it comes to the monitoring of their online brand presence.
For companies that pay little attention to their online storefronts, the rewards are continual brand hijacking, abusive pay-per-click tactics and outright attacks on brands.
MarkMonitor, an enterprise brand protection firm, offers solutions and services to safeguard brands, reputation and revenue from online risks. In their white paper “Online Brand Protection: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Proactive Strategy” MarkMonitor recommends a series of protective measures, including:
- Identifying all domain names in your portfolio
- Manage your portfolio proactively
- Monitor for potential abuse
- Respond to abuse
Great paper–in particular, we recommend you take a look at the section on monitoring for potential abuse. You can do this inside your company, or there are several online services that offer affordable methods to do this for you. No matter how you do it, the key is never-ending vigilance.
Creating an ideal domain portfolio is a good start to establishing and protecting your corporate brands online. However, it is just the beginning. While defensive registrations enable you to own and control the domain names that may be abused by third parties, it is simply impossible for any corporation to register every potentially harmful domain name. Therefore, the next critical step for defending your brands online is to establish a strategic monitoring program that constantly searches the internet for potential abuses, including:
- Cybersquatting
- Domain kiting/tasting
- Trademark infringement
- Traffic diversion schemes
- False associations with unrelated third parties
- Pay-per-click abuse
- Sponsored in abuse
- Logo/image abuse
- Offensive content
- Channel non-compliance with brand guidelines and/or pricing
Many small–and even larger–companies cannot afford to hire a person devoted to these critical tasks. This is what the bad guys count on. Again, a monitoring service is worth the price if it can save you the damage of brand equity loss, not to mention real money gone forever due to internet banditry. (They can also help you identify new customers–but that’s another post).
A comprehensive, proactive social media monitoring and interactive strategy is also a hedge against bad actors, as your customers will be in regular communication with you and often tell you when they spot a spoof site or a shady deal involving your brand.
Brand managers should assess the degree to which website traffic is diverted to sites that abuse its brand and the amount of lost advertising revenue that is diverted to fraudulent pay-per-click sites, You should look at quantitative and qualitative indicators, including:
- Degree of fewer “negative impressions” due to successfully shutting down web site which degrade your brand
- Improvement in website traffic due to successfully shutting down traffic diversion tactics (Cybersquatting, pat-per-click sites, paid search ads)
- Better quality response rate to online advertising due to successfully shutting down fraudulent pay-per-click sites
- Productivity gains and/or hours saved per week in detecting and responding to infringement by leveraging available technologies and solutions
From the public relations perspective, monitoring is critical in protecting your brand’s reputation and credibility. One of the services we provide at AlexanderG Public Relations includes online brand monitoring and image management. This helps us head off potentially bad PR by identifying and addressing problems before they become full-blown crises; it also helps our clients determine where best to apply their messaging and online resources–often increasing market share in the process.
Nasty stuff outlined in this post is happening to oblivious companies everyday. The message is simple: if you don’t know what’s going in your online storefront, it’s the same as someone setting up a fake store just around the corner from yours in real-life –selling low quality goods and ruining your good name.
Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s expensive.
AlexanderG Whiz Mailbag: “Thank you for blogging!”
I received a nice email about some of my 
AlexanderG Whiz blog posts from Kandi, a customer service professional in the hospitality industry. Here’s part of her email:
Hey Alex!
I enjoyed the Honda follow-up blog! Glad to see that they didn’t disappoint, now every time I get those coupons in the mail I wonder what they are going to try to up sell me on when I enter!
Also wanted to let you know that I deeply enjoyed your April 26th post about Good Customer Service to the Core, I actually just spoke to a [college] hospitality class about customer service and getting back to the basics. [...] I totally agree with you though that if people in the service industry would just realize that it is the small things that make the most impact a lot of the companies wouldn’t be where they are today!
Anyway just wanted to check in with you and thank you for blogging!
Kandi
She also mentioned she is thinking about writing a book on customer service. We hope she does–and we’ll certainly let you know when it’s published.
Thanks for writing Kandi!
You can write us, too–or leave a comment below. Come on, let’s hear from you!
Good Customer Service…to the Core!
It can never be overstated that when you give your employees the authority to make decisions that impact customer satisfaction, you’ll win in the long run. I’ve written about this before in more detail, but let me share a recent anecdote.
I had somehow managed to make the ‘Y’ key on my MacBook stick, and no amount of my efforts to fix it succeeded. As I need my MacBook to make my living, I knew I had no choice but to bite the bullet. I went online and made an appointment at my local Apple Store “Genius Bar” for later that afternoon. (I should stop here and say that the mere fact that I could make an appointment online and get real customer service just like that is a minor miracle these days.)
I went in, expecting to have to leave my Mac for a costly repair. The “genius” at the store fiddled with the offending key for a few moments, did some diagnostics and sighed. He then took out a piece of Scotch tape and stuck the key to the outside of the Mac. He didn’t ask, just did it, then picked up the phone and made sure that they had the parts needed to fix the machine.
I braced myself for what came next. You see, I had been complaining online (Twitter, Facebook, email) for months about a cracked case on my Mac after I was told over the phone that Apple would not–even though they admitted the case was a design defect–fix it for free. It would cost $317.05. Well, no way, I said. I’ll have a cracked Mac and think twice before buying another MacBook.
Anyway, back to the other day: I just knew the the genius at the store was going to say I would have to pay for the new case. Instead, he said “Yeah, we need to replace the keyboard. We’ll replace this cracked case while were at it.”
No charge.
And it gets better: it was ready in less than an hour.
That Apple Store genius was empowered to make a decision on his own initiative to fix the computer and make a defect in the MacBook design go from being my liability to what is rightfully theirs. In so doing he also ensured that I will definitely buy a pricey MacBook Pro when I upgrade my computer next year.
And all those Tweets I made complaining about the cracked Mac? Well, I certainly made up for them already with my Tweets and Facebook posting about how well I was treated. (“I love Apple to the core!”)
It cost so little for Apple to not only make me happy, but to ensure my loyalty and inspire me to tell the world on Twitter, Facebook and this blog.
Do you empower your employees to make these types of decisions? Shouldn’t you?
An Update on Clever Car Tricks
You may recall a recent post about a fairly clever, attention-grabbing way a car dealership is is trying to entice existing clients to bring in service work. (I’ll spare you the rehash–just click here to read that post.)
Kandi, a faithful AlexanderG Whiz blog reader tells me she also received this postcard:
“I think overall it was a great piece of literature and like you said a great marketing tool for them if they follow through on the promise. I’ve owned a Honda since I was 16 and have had nothing but great service from coast to coast at any dealership I have been too, but rarely take advantage of all the mail items I get from them other than the occasional oil change coupon. So it will be interesting to see their approach to this ad.”
Well, Kandi, I booked our second car–a decidedly older, non-Honda Saab. When I checked the car in, I asked the service rep if this was a new promotion. He said yes, and that they had so far received a healthy response. He said it was “Their way of saying thanks to their loyal customers.”
I said that it was also a great way to potentially double their business, and he didn’t disagree. In my previous post, I speculated upon some reasons why this campaign was worth a shot:
- The dealership probably sent these cards only to active customers–those customers (like my wife) who bring in their Honda for regular oil changes, tune ups, etc. They want to double their business from these presumably satisfied customers; guessing that most customers have two cars (like us)– and that if they don’t have another car on their service roster from that family address there’s a reason. The reason is likely that it’s a different make of car, purchased elsewhere (Yup, that’s us); therefore it’s being serviced elsewhere. Of course, the Honda dealership wants that car in their service bay.
- They find your alignment indeed does need work, and true to their promotional material they do it for free. That makes you happy and predisposed to coming back, right?
- There’s every chance that they may find something else wrong with your car and offer you an incentive to fix it while you’re there–the classic up-sell.
- If they don’t find anything wrong, they’re banking on their service personnel’s professionalism, the shuttle service or the coffee in the waiting lounge to make you think of them when your car does need service. Heck you might even kill time and wander the lot looking at the new Hondas…
- If nothing else, they have touched a regular customer with a generous offer–this increases brand loyalty. As you know, the news media is rife with stories of automobile companies across the board scrambling to retain market share.
After my experience, I think these are all valid points addressed in this marketing strategy. By the looks of the packed waiting room at the dealership, I’d say the promo and their other efforts are paying off.
All in all, it was good experience–they found several things needing attention on my car, but didn’t hard-sell me. In fact, on one particular repair they said I would be better served taking my car to the Saab repair shop. They did find my rear alignment was off and fixed it for free, along with topping off fluids and getting me a price on new tires. If nothing else, I left feeling very good about the dealership and even more disposed to buying a new Honda when the time comes.
I have to hand it to them–this promo is a winner.
