How to protect the reputation of your business

In a highly competitive, global marketplace, the strength of the reputation of your brand is key to retaining and attracting customers, employees and investors. Ensuring your products or services are always of the very highest quality is key to ensuring you enjoy a positive reputation among consumers and the business community as a whole.

Should you find yourself in the middle of a crisis, you�ll be able to rely on your prior good reputation to mitigate some of the potential damage. However, it�s important to have a strategy in place to deal with the issues as and when they arise so that your company can emerge from the crisis without losings its share of the market.

Stay proactive

If you spot a potential crisis on the horizon and there is a chance that the reputation of your company may take a hit as a result, don’t wait until the worst-case scenario is right on top of you before you start to do something about it. There is far less effort involved in maintaining a positive reputation than repairing a tarnished one so start putting your damage limitation strategy to work before any damage is actually suffered.

Keep your suppliers happy

If your business is suffering from cash flow issues, you might be tempted to delay paying some of your bills. This is always a terrible idea as ultimately, the cost of making payments when they are due pales into insignificance compared to the cost of trying to rebuild your reputation within the business community.

Paying late simply delays the inevitable but does so at a huge cost to your credibility. Paying late may prevent you having access to early payment discounts and lead to fines and penalties being levied so that you actually end up paying out far more.

Keep your staff happy

The only thing worse for your reputation than paying suppliers late is paying your staff late. Whatever the reason for the delay, the assumption will be that the company is irresponsible or simply does not care for their employees. This could easily deter potential customers and suppliers who fear their time and efforts are not account for, and whether they�ll be mispaid next month too.

The speed and ease with which disgruntled current or former employees can distribute information about the goings-on at your company on social media means that, even if the cashflow problems are only temporary, your enterprise could find itself at the center of a controversy from which it might never recover. Hiring a reputable company such as Reliable Payroll Solutions NJ to handle that side of your business is a great way to ensure everyone always gets paid the right amount at the right time.

Check online chatter

It�s a good idea to carry out regular online searches on the name of your company and key executives, just to ensure no issues are emerging that you are unaware of. Should you find any, take time to respond politely and as objectively as possible. A knee-jerk reaction to a comment could easily backfire against your company, even if what you say is right or the original poster was simply being malicious.