Reputation Management Seminar

In today’s web dominated world the role of an online Reputation Manager is crucial as the clients, nowadays, are more comfortable with sharing their opinion openly on the Internet. Moreover, according to the statistics the clients’ buying decisions are influenced to a great extend by the opinion of the people they know and generally by other consumers’ opinions. The public opinion can easily spoil or alter the Hotels Reputation.  Unless the clients’ comments are monitored and tracked in a structured and professional manner the Hotel brand image can be seriously damaged or even ruined. Therefore the skills that an excellent Reputation Manager should possess in my opinion are as following.

An online Reputation Manager should be in full control of the Hotel’s branding and Reputation by monitoring and analyzing the consumer opinion, therefore he should be extremely hard-working and organized.  He should fully understand the nature of the opinion expressed and how to respond positively.

Reputation manager is an advanced tool that searches the Web for positive and negative comments on selected criteria. This enables a Reputation Manager to continuously monitor and track your brand perception on Internet sites and Social Media Networks. Therefore he should have an ease using social networking. An understanding of the social web, including blogs, forums, social networks, micro blogs, photo/video sharing, ratings and reviews, RSS etc.

He should be ‘everywhere’, energetic, self-starting, dynamic, and able to develop and edit high quality written materials, ideally with Public Relation experience.

The Reputation Manager should have detail-oriented, excellent critical thinking, writing, editing and presentation skills. Proven ability to develop compelling proposals and present them effectively and persuasively.

Sometimes the response to the negative opinion should be found and written as soon as possible; therefore the ideal Reputation Manger should have the ability to meet deadlines without sacrificing quality.

To summarize, here are some basic skills and traits a person should have to do the job well:

• An ability to manage several social media profiles (an organized person)
• Exceptional communication skills, fluent in English with proper grammar and spelling
• Someone who comes across as pleasant, positive and polite in online communications
• Attention to detail
• An understanding of search engines, or someone who can learn new software quickly
• A curious person who keeps up with all the Internet marketing and social media blogs on a daily basis, and  thinks outside the box

The main difference in my opinion between the Reputation Manager and the regular manager is that the Reputation Manager has to be passionate about the Web and quick-minded. He is supposed to be in Sync with the new technology much more than a regular manager, he has to be extremely sociable and to express himself in a professional and polite manner, a real diplomat he should know what the clients would like to hear in order to feel that their opinion is important even if its negative.  Reputation Management should work closely with to Social Media Marketing management or even the Reputation Management should include the Social Media Management as we cannot separate them.  I also think that Reputation Manager should be in constant communication with all the other departments of the hotel in order to quickly transmit the message left by the customer. For example, if the guest was not satisfied with the Restaurant service, the idea is that Reputation Manager should pass the information over to the Food & Beverage department or Restaurant Manager, the person in charge, in order to rapidly find a solution to the problem. On the whole, the Reputation Manager should play an important role in the hotel organization assuring a successful operation.

How the hotel should measure if the Reputation Management is a success? It is obvious that in order to receive pleasant reviews from customers the hotel should first of all assure an excellent service!  And the Reputation Management should contribute in the constant process of maintaining the high-quality services by transmitting the message from the customers. Excellent service will encourage people to talk about the hotel in a good way and therefore will assure the strong positive reputation and will bring more customers. And the Reputation Management is out there to protect this reputation.  By protecting your business name, you are also protecting your business success. If anything should go wrong, if there is a crisis because of the extremely bad review or public opinion, the Reputation Management should rapidly propose different solutions in order to save the hotels reputation. Timing is crucial and is one of the most important criteria to judge the Reputation Management efficiency.