Because my DSL was down  I called Deutsche Telekom’s customer support.

While on hold (for 10 minutes) I was suggested to alternatively visit their website for help.

Now, generally I would have done so, simply because I don’t really appreciate hanging around on hold with some call center where the answers you get are quite doubtable by themselves – but how, without a connection to the internet because they screwed up?

To those who are just about to start defending their initiative: no, this was not a general hotline phone number but one dedicated to problems with DSL connections.

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My editor (not the one that disappeared ) called this a true eye opener and upon  the idea founded the company Online Reputation Management, which I am a part of.

It is truly amazing how many people are unaware of how fast bad news can spread about a company online. And how fast it can endanger the whole brand and image.

So here we go on to the chapter “Corporate Online  Reputation Management”:

Remember the good old days when – if negative news were published by a credible newspaper – you would contact your legal counsel and tell them to take the appropriate measures, which would consist of a restraining order or something of that nature?

These times have been replaced by a potential grave danger to your organizations reputation. A danger you can’t counter with the conventional methodologies utilized back then because its nature is not conventional either.

The threat I am talking about is called social media and can ruin your reputation in a matter of days.

It was in early 2008 and a tool called Twitter at the brink of its breakthrough when I first mentioned what is today known as corporate reputation management.

Back then I closed the link by suggesting that upon negative news popping up about an organization on the web, one assigned person will take action by immediately contacting the person complaining, regardless if their complaint was legitimate or not.

To illustrate this process with an example let’s just say that one of your clients is dissatisfied with the service provided by your organization and boasts out a complaint about that on the web.

Now, this can be through their blog in the best case because you have time to react and they can remove or alter that entry when your reputation management staff picked up on and resolved the issue together with the client.

Worse would be if they published their opinion on highly frequented places like micro-blogging platforms where the viral effect is way more likely to take effect simply because they can’t be stopped and even if the clients problem is solved, the good news are unlikely to pick up with the same magnitude.

In all cases the ideal outcome for everyone involved would be that the person who complained in the first place replaces what they have written with the story of how great your customer service is because they got back to them immediately.

Chances that this happens are fairly high because the people are – up until now – not used to this kind of behavior and reaction by support staff.

While back then it took a few hours the tools available today make information surrounding your organization available to you the instant they are published.

Through so-called real time search engines, to which you can submit searches and are informed the instant someone, somewhere says something about you, and this whole topic becomes even more interesting for you as an organization.

This immediate access allows you or your representatives to take immediate action against negative issues being published about you on the web.

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