Archive for the ‘Negative Forums’ Category

The British catwalker is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. The extent of her temper has invited suggestion to instate sirens and lights to alert those vulnerable souls she hires.  They say ‘When you are with Naomi better don’t say “No”, or else you get a bloody nose. This time it was her 27-year-old-driver, who was boxed and slapped from the back seat of the car in Manhattan. Naomi immediately fled the scene. The driver called 911 and the NYPD was looking for her to be questioned.

Naomi Campbell’s reputation is on the rocks. Just Google Naomi and you will find majority of the websites are related to her bad temper than modeling. She had been in and out of trouble numerous time before, the charges she faced ranges from beating an assistant, hurling mobile at her maid and throwing abuses at British Airways staff.

What is it that makes this sultry siren go wild? Is it because she had a trouble childhood and  struggled in life, so all that frustration has to be taken off by beating up people?   Money is not a factor and she doesn’t seem much bothered about her reputation. Serious loss in waiting and she need to realize that negative comments influences everybody and travels faster than her imagination.  Her recent show to raise funds for Haiti earthquake is over shadowed by bad stories.

Is Naomi Campbell adept to change herself? Half way through this blog I came across the news that Ms. Campbell’s driver has apologized and he is  blaming himself for the confusion. How did this happened? Naomi later issued a statement

I have worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I will not be held hostage to my past.

We at Reputation Management For.com feel that this was a great PR move by Naomi because she was able to turn this around while the news was still buzzing. But more than that celebrity management is one thing she may need, to realize success and failure in its true form and reputation management to defend her super stardom status.

Related celebrity posts

• Tiger Woods Press conference
• Sarah Palin- Tea Party
• John Terry and Max Clifford

So obviously part of our reputation management is monitoring what people are saying about clients.  We of course monitor what is being said about our own business, and it’s amazing what we see.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/internet/reputationmanagementfor.html

This is a classic attack from either a competitor or from the website owners themselves trying to damage our reputation or force us to pay a premium to add comments.  This happens to 1000’s of companies and many are not aware of it until customer cancels a sale after reading bogus and negative comments on such sites.

If you want to comment on their pages this is what they say:

ConsumerAffairs.com is a private, non-govermental entity that empowers consumers by providing a forum for their complaints and a means for them to be contacted by lawyers if their complaints have legal merit. Your complaints and comments may be published, shared with the news media and reviewed by attorneys at no cost to you. See the FAQ for more information.

Please be accurate and fair in your comments. Remember, you are responsible for what you write. We do not proofread your submission so please type carefully — and please, don’t use all capital letters.

Consumer Information Information about you. We do not publish your identity but must have it for our records. If your complaint is published, only your first name will be used on our Web site. See privacy policy for more information. Reports become the property of ConsumerAffairs.com Inc. and may be published, edited or discarded at our sole option.

Why don’t they publish the details of people who complain?  Does this mean anyone can write anything without the worry of being sued – I think so?

Company Response Welcome If complaints about your company appear on our site, we welcome your response. Please see the Response Form for more information.

I could not see anyway to have things removed, only options available are to respond:

We offer two different ways to respond to consumer complaints and comments on our site:

1. The complaint form Click on the red “Complaint Button” and insert your business name in the appropriate spot. Your response will be posted as soon as it is reviewed by our moderators. Do not use the customer’s last name or other personal information that you may have. Doing so will result in your being banned permanently from our system.

2. Isertive Instant Response®
This is a premium service that enables businesses to respond directly to consumers, enabling them to resolve complaints and prevent similar problems in the future. Subscribers may also post their responses directly to our site. For more information and an application, visit Isertive.com

The last thing you ever want to do on such a crappy site is respond on it, this will encourage even more people to write negative responses and you can’t control it.

The best thing Google could do is BLACK LIST this site from showing in their reults.

Please let me know if you are having an issue with bogus comments on this site.

Now what are the chances that Consumer Affairs is owned by the same people who own, oh surprise surprise James Hood owns both of the sites http://isertive.com/

WHOIS Info for CONSUMERAFFAIRS.COM

Some information on the domain:
Domain Name: CONSUMERAFFAIRS.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: NS0.DNSMADEEASY.COM
Name Server: NS1.DNSMADEEASY.COM
Name Server: NS2.DNSMADEEASY.COM
Name Server: NS3.DNSMADEEASY.COM

IP:209.20.68.198

Look at how often they have moved servers and changed name, hmmm call me synical!!!

Email Search: is associated with about 1,024,614 domains

Registrant Contact:
ConsumerAffairs.Com, Inc.
James Hood ()

Fax:
11400 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90064
US

Administrative Contact:
ConsumerAffairs.Com, Inc.
James Hood ()
+1.2132918086
Fax:
11400 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90064
US

Technical Contact:
The Oakton Press, Inc.
James Hood ()
+1.7033596800
Fax: +1.8007790816
11350 Random Hills Drive, Suite 650
Fairfax, VA 22030
US
is associated with about 30 domains
is associated with about 182 domains
Registrar History: 2 registrars with 2 drops.
NS History: 12 changes on 8 unique name servers over 8 years.
IP History: 4 changes on 4 unique name servers over 4 years.
Whois History: 674 records have been archived since 2001-12-20 .
Dedicated Hosting: consumeraffairs.com is hosted on a dedicated server.

WHOIS Info for isertive.com

Registrant Contact:
ConsumerAffairs.Com Inc.
James Hood ()

Fax:
PO Box 3233
Oakton, VA 22124
US

Administrative Contact:
ConsumerAffairs.com
James Hood ()
+1.8778548038
Fax:
PO Box 3233
Oakton, VA 22124
US

Technical Contact:
The Oakton Press, Inc.
James Hood ()
+1.7033596800
Fax: +1.8007790816
11350 Random Hills Drive, Suite 650
Fairfax, VA 22030
US

Status: Active

Name Servers:
ns1.slicehost.net
ns2.slicehost.net
ns3.slicehost.net

Creation date: 13 Aug 2000 16:38:07

Have the public lost faith in MPs? The expenses file shows MPs more than half the entire House of Commons are involved in the controversial expenses scandal. They exploited the system of parliamentary allowances to promote their lifestyles and homes. The revelation has angered many voters and the reputation of the MPs has taken a beating.

People at large knew nothing until the scandal was out in the open and how MPs claimed for items far beyond what was allowed. Change in the system was voiced, but unfortunately there weren’t many takers. The after effect of not heeding that advise is all out in black & white.

It’s not easy to get this scandal off the mind of the taxpayers. While some MPs are guilty for the wrongdoing it has tarnished everyone in the house of Commons with the same brush.

So what does this mean? Is there a need for an urgent damage control to restore public faith?

A need for a strategic reputation management to get back the lost glory. There is no quick-fix method to fix the problem, but MPs need to realize that they are  the representatives of their constituency and are not traders.

Politics and politicians are definitely not immune to bad press or negative comments, the above scandal shows how a politicians online reputation can go for a ride even if you are not at fault. You need to apprise the public your accomplishments, and what you are planning to do. This will allow people to respond positively and garner faith in the system.

David Cameron, when said ‘all MPs who do not repay will be sacked and be termed not eligible for election. This is a welcome statement and will infuse confidence in public, and also minimize the resentment in public for those in the House of Commons.

Politician’s reputation holds greater significance as electorate comprising of different age and group will have a common thinking about their representative, which makes sense to them. Let your positive image be known to the public, after all that is all you need to face the polls.

Reputation management is here to stay as it will be an ongoing threat. The social media has made it easy for all to plug in and play. When user feeds in a negative comment it is more likely to generate new type of threat for your brand. Your infrastructure vendor will be good at blocking malware, but not the negative comment circulating on the web. So most companies will need to find way to shield their repute. We need not have to dig deep to take into consideration what the future holds, but we’ll see that in coming year companies will take a serious stand to monitor their reputation.

One of the main factors why I chose to pick on social networking sites is because they are a very important part of reputation management. If there is one thing that we learned from social media is that user content ranks very well in the search engines. Just sit back and do a search, I am sure you will come across at least a couple of social media sites in first page of your search. So imagine the height of damage these hi-speed information portals can do in a click of the mouse. The usage and access to social media in workplace will be on top priority to help protect companies from getting their brand tarnished.

If you notice many of these social websites allow users to register in company user ID and even generates URL that ends with the name of your company.

http://twitter.com/companyname

http://companyname.Wordpress.com

http://www.myspace.com/companyname

You need to be the first to register with your name and URLs on these sites and do it fast. The problem with such provision is that you are always at risk and someone use these sites to damage your brand reputation. It will be immature to say that such things will go off and settle down by itself. Companies should not take for granted the power of social websites and its impact. The one-click-connect-to-all kind of platform is powerful to damage your reputation and is an established form of media today. Remember when a user tweets about the pathetic service you offer, it will obviously put your business in trouble, that’s the power of social media

While you want to remove bad press or comments on social website, you need not have to change the way you do your business. Even if you run your business perfectly you are bound to get a dissatisfied customer who will do the rest to tamper your reputation. The best way to counter malicious content on the web is to hire a reputation management firm to take care of your stake. They will counter these allegations, build up your profiles and gets them listed on search engines with keywords that are important to your reputation. It’s one method to gain access and be in control. It also provides you with a chance to reach those customers who never visited your official company website.  Safeguarding your brand reputation comes with a cost and should be included in your business budget.

If you’re professional a doctor or a lawyer you’re probably wary of sites like RateMDs.com or LawyerRatingz.com, a bad review or comment there could make all the difference in your professional life. Reputation is all that matters to a doctor or lawyer their whole life, education and training all ride on this one factor through out their active years.

Good feedback from clients/patients on rating sites can double your value as a professional, you could be thinking of new offices and clinics with referrals from such sites. Much like hotel reviews on TripAdvisor can make or break your hotel’s reputation.  So what can you do if you have been maliciously slandered by someone out for a personal vendetta? Is there a way out?

When we read reviews online we tend to believe the person with a label similar to our own. For example: a review poster’s bio may be simply read – “50 year old man with arthritis” or “a mother of two toddlers” and the reader immediately connects with them. What follows in the review can make or break the reputation of the doctor being rated.

If all reputation management tricks fail to remove negative comments and reviews – law is the only way ahead. We could soon be having Reputation Management Law, wherein you could get the real identity of the poster revealed. You could actually find out if the malicious poster was actually your client or patient!!!

If you’re thinking ..”no way is this happening”, let me tell you that this has happened already – Lawiscool.com has reported exactly this …

The case of  Dr. Mohamed Foda of Leduc, Alberta, who forced RateMDs to provide information about a negative poster through the California Northern District Court in Foda et al v. RateMDs, Inc.  

Administrator of RateMDs, John Swapceinski, says that the site gets letters from lawyers once a month.  Not surprisingly, they do not comply with the requests.  The site does serve an important public function for consumers of healthcare.  But Swapceinski also said that Dr. Foda’s suit is the first time a lawyer has actually followed through and sued the site, and he indicated he would cooperate with a subpoena to release the information if one was provided.”

Here at Reputation Management For.com we welcome any such legislation and this could very well lead to a whole new branch in corporate reputation management. We are all for justice and this is reputation management at its most effective.

A grey area here could be the right to privacy and the big news today is that France is pondering on a Right To Forget Law to protect people from their own Tweets and Facebook posts!

These are very interesting times indeed for reputation management. Watch this space for updates on any legislation coming the reputation management way!

When searching for ‘Tiger Woods’ on Google it didn’t bring up his official website, but something rather spicy to be precise.

Woods reputation has taken a beating no doubt, and now his announcement about indefinite leave from golf will further make matter worse. Companies and products that Woods endorse are caught sitting ducks. A rough estimates shows an already loss to incur is around $12 billion.

The positive reputation he has worked years to attain now shows above his official website.  Being a celebrity your reputation is always at the crossroads and anything can hit you.  Strangely in Mr. Woods’s case it was a (mysterious) accident.

It may be noted that before the accident Tiger Woods enjoyed 85% positive sentiments on social media. Interestingly a week post-accident it did not plunged to a very low either as a sudden impact.  This was the ideal time to capitalize and minimize the damage, if only Mr. Woods had believed in Reputation Management.

With no proper damage control plan in place it was all expected. Surprisingly the reaction from the Woods clubhouse has been too slow and hazy. Tiger should realize that ‘No press is tantamount to Bad press‘ and he took his own time to clear the air. Meanwhile internet and the social media websites were flooded with more negative comments thus creating its own crisis. Negative comments later jumped to 40% from 15%, while the positive sentiment was at an all time low of 14%.

This whole affair will cost the golfer $100 million a year in endorsement income. Too late for the Tiger to be out of the woods if only he knew- “It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it” -  Jack Nicklaus .

Nestle – as if the controversy was not enough for their Honey Shreddies, here comes another blow from FDA over their Juicy Juice drink BOOST.  The company claims it is a complete Nutritional Drink.  FDA says – ‘Nestle is promoting the drink as a medical food and that it treats “failure to thrive” and helps children in chronic illness.

Well about Nestle “Their actions are so loud, one cannot hear what they say“. Nestle seems to oversee the fact that consumers aren’t fools, this age when the world is just a click away it will not take much time for your reputation to go for a ride in matter of minutes. In the recent case we have seen how Twitter and Facebook were flooded with articles and calls to boycott them.

While we know that Nestle is always in controversy, what surprises me is they have no action in place to counter it and are always wondering what hit them.

Strangely they say one thing and go on doing something else. Nestle responses are always generic – send them an e-mail only to get a reply ‘the mail is forwarded to the Switzerland, Headquarters. Their handling of a situation is poorly managed – they bask on PR, which is just an aspect of the approach and not a substitute of Reputation management.

Buying time will only make matter worse; the consumer has the power of Internet. Nestle should let it be known that they are transparent. You cannot hide things from consumer; the skeletons will be out and the rest internet will ensure that you don’t stay in single piece.

Better late than never Nestles should do some brainstorming. Internet and plenty of social media out there it’s a classic example of “word to mouth” for your reputation.

When talking about Online Reputation Management(ORM) we mean monitoring web 2 media like; blogs, social forums or network or video streaming sites for negative content. So how do you defend your product or organization when somebody is beating you blue with all that negative comments. Needless to say negative comments severely dent the reputation of an organization and the brand.

It’s a global phenomenon – positive or negative if attracts million hits will always rank on top. We need to understand that negative comment comes in all notorious forms and languages, type ‘Microsoft sucks’ on Google and see for yourself. So it becomes extensively important to protect your brand when consumers/competitors have larger ground to air their views.

Pushing down negative comments on search engines is what most Reputation management companies do, but it’s a temporary solution while the issue is still at large. So in our opinion relegating negative comments monitoring along with brand content optimization is the best option. Branded content in the search will stave-off negative contents.

Constant monitoring becomes very important to manage your online reputation. But how do you keep track about all that bad mouthing your new product gets? Setting Google or Yahoo alerts can be handy. Searching with adjectives or modifiers like “sucks”, “worst”, “bad” with your keyword will give you a better idea what others think about your product.

Implementing manual monitoring will be more effective to check results. A tool in place that would alert the business owner if there is any negative comments about the product out there will be great. You will be able to check the authenticity of the negative comments and take action immediately if urgent.

Employing proactive monitoring system enables you to get an insight about the content and the customer’s understanding about your brand. This further will let you interact with the customer directly and sort issues amicably. Your instant action can save your product identity, and let Reputation management be a part of your best practice.

The 12-day strike called by Unite union looms large this holiday season putting hundreds of thousands of people and their travel plans in jeopardy. As British Airways fears the backlash, forums are swamped by passengers venting their anger against the insensitive approach of more than 13000 cabin crew who have voted for the strike.

The strike is planned in protest to the proposed pay and job cuts that BA has planned to ease its pension deficit of £3.7 billion which is likely to more than double to £8 billion this year. Unite union’s 13000 cabin crew are expected to join the strike even though they are paid double that of other airlines like Virgin.

In a bid to get the union to call off the strike and save its reputation, British Airways have resorted to legal action. “The airline called on Unite to call off the industrial action by 2pm today. The union has not done so and BA is now seeking an injunction to prevent the strike from going ahead,” the flag carrier’s chief executive Willie Walsh said in a statement last night. The legal action is taken on the grounds that there were irregularities in the strike ballot.

The papers are full of articles citing passenger anger at the strike which is to begin on December 22nd to Jan 2nd 2010.  Would you plan your holiday booking with British Airways after this fiasco? Chances are you will not, if this issue does not resolve well.

It would almost be impossible to recover from this bad reputation for BA. The service industry is constantly dogged by bad reviews, bad press, and negative forums and an internal crisis like this will be nothing short of a disaster for BA’s reputation.

Damage limitation is what is being resorted to and BA plans last-ditch talks to solve the issue.

Most businesses want their websites to show up on the first page of search engines. How good is it if your website  appears on the first page of Google or Yahoo? You search for your company/product name and to your surprise you find one or more listings on top. You have been waiting for this, but then the sudden change in weather on search engines is astonishing. Have a closer look, do you see anything unusual? Well it could be those negative comments about your products doing the rounds and inviting so many visitors and obviously putting your website on top. If it is so, you are in big trouble.

One negative comment is enough to frighten away many likely customers. How genuine these reviews or complaints are is not the question, but it is about the impact. Your company’s reputation is at stake besides loss of revenue in millions.

Reputation management has become a crucial tool, but then very few companies go for this service to counter negative propaganda waged against their firms. Airlines, banks, hotels are the most vulnerable and are always at the receiving end, by disgruntled customers or envying competitors. By being ignorant of reputation management these firms end up sorting issues through litigation, which is twice as expensive and time consuming as compared to hiring reputation managers.

In such situations, our suggestion is to ‘nip it in the bud’- suppress the negative comments and bring up the positive ones. It is all about customizing a strategy to corner negative comments and design a campaign to keep positive reviews of your company above others.

Safeguarding your business from on-line damages and ensuring its smooth run is tantamount to running a business itself. New and small companies need to understand how vulnerable they are and how important reputation management services are for their business.