Does Your Local Reputation Reflect Your Brand Values?

By Heather Ripley

As a local home service business owner, you no doubt value having a lot of positive online reviews.

But, outside of some kind words from customers on Google or Yelp, is your local reputation positive? Does it reflect what you consider your company’s brand values?

Your reputation influences the public’s perception of your company, and every business has one. The trick is to ensure that your employees and other company representatives know your company’s core values and what it means to live by them every day.

Perception Versus Reality

When you first started your plumbing company, chances are your business consisted of you, a helper and a truck.

During those early days, it may have been difficult to find the time to chart your vision and create a business plan so that you could scale your growth. But as you grew, you had to take the time to build a game plan that would help you work on your business and not just in it.

At this point in your business development, you began to list and define your company’s core values. Your goal was to embed these values into your company’s standards, norms, processes and behaviors.

Developing a clear mission statement and a consistent brand voice are key to boosting your reputation. Not only does it help your employees understand your vision for the future, it also gives you something to measure your capabilities against.

You may  believe that quality service and commitment to community are two of your top five values, for example. But unless you are regularly monitoring your online reviews, surveying your customers and educating your employees on what sets you apart from your competition, your perception of your company’s standing might not be the reality.

Find Out Who You Are

Recent studies have shown that as many as 92% of consumers read online reviews before deciding to do business with a company. If sales are faltering or you’re not meeting customer needs, it might be time to investigate the disconnect between what you think your reputation is and how others see you.

Here are a few steps to take:

1. Track your social media. Take a look at what customers are saying on your posts or see if they are saying anything at all. If you have a lot of complaints on Facebook or your marketing department’s posts aren’t aligned with your vision, it may be time to retrain your employees on your key values.
2. Read your online reviews. Most home service companies understand how important online reviews are to the growth of a company. You may have instructed your team to ask for positive reviews, but if they aren’t following up to ensure complaints are answered, you’re opening your company up as a target for trolling behavior.
3. Get involved in your community. If you volunteer for local events or sit on the board of an area nonprofit organization, you’ll have the opportunity to meet new people and get a first-hand look at how others perceive you.

If what you read, see and hear doesn’t match up with what you expect your reputation to be, you may need to concentrate on some reconstructive training and reputation management.

Build a Winning Reputation

Once you’ve determined where you stand in the community, you may need to either repair any damage in the worst-case scenario or simply build up your reputation in the best scenario.

To do this, you might need to do two things: retrain your employees to better represent your brand values and hire a reputable public relations agency that can help you get your message out to the general public.

Training your employees to embody your company’s values and brand identity should be a part of your onboarding process, but it never hurts to have refresher courses. But when it comes to boosting your positive reputation among the community, a PR professional is the expert at building relationships and telling your story.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson once said, “Your brand is only as good as your reputation,” and ensuring that your local reputation reflects your brand values is a must in the home services industry. Customers have to trust the skilled trades technicians that come into their homes, so if your reputation is suffering in the community, you will lose business.

Don’t leave this to chance. Stay on top of your reputation management. It’s just a part of doing business in today’s connected world.

Heather Ripley is founder and CEO of Ripley PR, an elite, global public relations agency specializing in the skilled trades, franchising and B2B tech industries. Ripley PR is recognized as the top PR agency for the home service industry. It also has been listed by Entrepreneur Magazine as a Top Franchise PR Agency for six consecutive years and was recently named as one of Newsweek’s America’s Best Public Relations Agencies for 2024. Heather Ripley was recently named as a 2024 PRNews Top Women honoree in the business entrepreneur category. She is also the author of “NEXT LEVEL NOW: PR Secrets to Drive Explosive Growth for your Home Service Business,” which is now available on all audiobook platforms. For additional information, visit www.ripleypr.com.