Reviews & Quality
Pfizer pill recall – botched up reputation in wrong pack
If there’s one thing women trust, it’s that the sun will rise in the East, you have to pay taxes, and that birth control pills will keep you away from unwanted worries.
Pfizer, the major birth control pill makers seem to have shaken that trust. The company had to recall million packs of these pills, which were wrongly packed. The company announced this flaw, before any woman could possibly become pregnant. Read the rest of this entry »
Reebok reputation takes a $25 million hit for deceptive info on toning shoe
Reebok’s reputation as an earnest athletic brand that could make people jump and run faster was all intact until the company introduced its toning shoe ‘EasyTone and RunTone’. The product claimed to burn that extra fat and get you that Jessica Alba kind booty. Well this was enough to tempt people to buy and fine tune their shape. Read the rest of this entry »
The future of residential utility bills – Appco Group
Who’d have thought that getting Power to the People would end up so expensive? The general public is currently up in arms over news that gas and electricity suppliers are set to increase their prices by up to 20% as of August of this year. And though this has become a political hotspot and a point of contention between the Labour and Conservative parties, more people are focused on the effects this could have on the consumers themselves.
Market experts at Appco Group UK have observed that the rates at which energy prices are set to hike could result in 1 in 5 people finding themselves in ‘fuel poverty’ – spending 10% or more of their income on utilities. Power suppliers however maintain that the increase in costs is reflective of current global energy costs. And, with a greater emphasis being placed on renewable energy sources (which despite advances in the technologies are still more expensive) it looks like a trend that’s set to continue for the forseeable future at least.
Bill-payers currently feel trapped. While not all the gas and electricity suppliers have announced price hikes yet, the biggest names have all suggested that they’re not in a position to avoid them, either. People will want to ensure they’re getting the best deals, but with the industry currently as indecisive as it is – it’s harder to know where to look. People might not be keen to leave one supplier in favour of another for fear that the grass might not stay greener for long enough to make the change worthwhile.
Companies will need to keep a competitive edge and place greater focus on customer relations if they hope to save face in lieu of pending price changes. Sales representatives and customer services will need to be tentative to a now-weary consumer base and have a greater awareness both of what they’re offering and how it’s likely to be received. Now more than ever there shall be an emphasis on building rapport with customer with face to face time being the order of the day. Appco Group UK say the best advice to consumers at the moment would be to explore options fully and take up any offers of information to help you make the best financial decisions for your household.
Skype Fails. Microsoft Blamed…
The widespread outage of the absolutely necessary Skype internet communicator that impacted most Windows users today could not have come at a worse time for Microsoft as the bloggers and tweeters of the world rose up to blame Microsoft rather than skype programmers. What is it with tech people that they so frequently hate Microsoft above all other technology companies. Why does MS have such a damaged and unloved reputation for messing things up? Read the rest of this entry »
How PR is out and Reputation Management is in
There is a saying that even bad publicity is good publicity, but that may work for Hollywood and that is not the case here. Reputation Management For.com conducted a study and learned that corporate crisis might very much result in online negative publicity, lowering the repute of the company. It was further found that most companies still tend to follow public relations and don’t see the value in ORM (online reputation management) until they get bonked in the head with devastating bad publicity. It’s in such situations that the effect of public relations becomes invaluable. Read the rest of this entry »
Doctors’ reputation and online reviews
From restaurants to hotels there are reviews for just about everything and doctors are no exception. There are millions of critics eager to post their last night experience about a chicken dish or grumble about a lethargic service and they will find a place to post them. Similarly websites like ratemd.com or angislist.com is a place where users post comments about their physicians. A Doctor will have hundreds of happy patients, but it only takes one bad review to trash a Doctor’s online reputation.
Google stops suggesting ‘scam’ on searches
Being plagued by Google auto-suggesting ‘scam’ with your name and directing people to a whole page of scam suggestions is a common problem for most. Well, this latest Google tweak could be the end to all your scam woes.
Google has stopped suggesting “scam” in suggestions and made life much easier for reputation managers. This is clearly huge for a company or a brand which has had to suffer monetarily and otherwise with the word ‘scam’ being suggested by Google.
Blogs like, Gr8 Example Of Google Drop Drown Suggesting Scam for Scam’s Sake, have been highlighting the problems companies had to endure both in reputation and in terms of enormous loss of revenue.
An active participation in the Google support forum under the head - Remove Google Suggest Keyword “scam” from my company name, has also been discussing Google scam suggestion issues. Often scam was being suggested when there weren’t many scam results in SERPs.
From today when you make searches, you will have to type the word “scam” and then you will get a clean page of suggestion even with Google Instant on and then press Enter to actually get to the results. No scam suggestions no more!
Surely a blow for review sites like Scam.com who have wielded enormous power over hapless companies with comments and postings in their forums which come up being auto-suggested by Google.
Clearly a much-needed reprieve for those who have been hit by scam posts by disgruntled employees, competitors, pranksters and the like.
Scam is not fully gone either: Google still suggests scam in related searches at the bottom of the results pages.