Summarize with AI
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and legibility.
Introduction
Gina Ramsey: Welcome, all. My name is Gina Ramsey. I’m the owner and founder of Pink Dog Digital. We are a full-service digital marketing company, and with us today is Coral Norman, our Director of Digital Media at Pink Dog, and Tanya Brown from CPG Incorporated. We’re super excited to have her with us today to talk about a part of online reputation management that a lot of businesses don’t consider.
So, let’s begin. I don’t want to be a talking head, so feel free to jump in with questions and we’ll answer them as we can. Let’s start here: drop in the chat and let us know the last time you looked up your own business online. Not just your website. Your reviews, your Glassdoor page, your Indeed listing, your Better Business Bureau listing. The things that people look at when you’re not in the room.
We know that some people are doing this daily and others may not have done it at all. I think you’d be surprised when you look yourself up what you find, and we definitely suggest that you look at this frequently. I try to check it once a week. You never know what’s out there.
When you’re thinking about online reputation management, it isn’t just for customers anymore. It’s about attracting all the right people, including employees. For years, ORM (online reputation management) meant Google reviews, the star ratings on all the platforms, and maybe some social monitoring. But now it also impacts hiring. In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to find great people, you really want to make sure that you look like a great employer, and we want to make sure you are a really great employer.
So, Coral, can you talk a little bit about when employer reputation became a part of ORM?
When Employer Reputation Became Part of ORM
Coral Norman: Yeah, definitely. Glassdoor and Indeed are really the two big ones that have turned it into more of an employee reputation platform on top of just your online reputation. Glassdoor launched in 2008, but it really didn’t take off until sometime between 2010 and 2015, which is when people started leaving reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed based on their employers. I know for a fact a lot of people were looking into it in the late 2010s, somewhere around 2017 and 2018. It was a very popular platform.
As far as Indeed and Glassdoor go, make sure you’re looking up who you’re working for before you actually get there. If we’re being honest, reputation management has always been a thing for employers, because people are always going to ask others their opinions of a business they’re looking into. It’s just become a lot more visible in the last couple of years because of platforms like Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn, where people can get a lot of information about employers before they ever set up a call, apply, or go any further in the recruiting process.
In fact, research shows that about 86 percent of job seekers will research a company before they apply, and nearly 70 percent said they would reject a job offer with a company that has a poor reputation on platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor. So, it’s very important that you’re looking at those and making sure you know what people are saying about you, and responding properly, which we’ll get into as we go.
GR: So, it’s almost like candidates are researching companies like a consumer who wants to do business with that company, right?
CN: Yeah, exactly. Hiring has become more of a two-way evaluation process. Where it used to feel like you needed to impress your employer to get a job, it’s still true, it’s still a thing that happens, but it’s just as important on the other side, where the employer needs to impress the potential employee, because people do have options. Especially with the gig economy and a lot of people turning to freelance work, they don’t necessarily have to work with a company that has a poor reputation.
So, people aren’t just asking, “Can I get this job?” anymore. They’re starting to ask themselves, “Do I even want this job?” based on what they’re seeing from current and previous employees. People aren’t just motivated by salary anymore, either. They want good culture. They want to know that the place they’re at, they feel safe and comfortable and like they’re part of a team and that they’re able to grow.
And you won’t be surprised to hear that AI has a lot to do with the pivot, because people are able to get a lot more information in one place than they ever have before. It’s not like they have to go individually to Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. They can type into ChatGPT or Claude or whichever one they prefer, “Tell me about this employer’s reputation as far as employees go,” and it’s going to pull up reviews, social conversations, culture pages, and employee feedback all into one place. So, people are finding it easier than ever right now to look at that and make a decision on whether that’s somewhere they want to be.
Your business needs to not only have those good reviews, but it needs to be highly visible in a wide variety of places, from both customers and clients as well as employees, so that potential employees know what they’re getting into.
How Much Do Reviews Actually Matter?
GR: So how much do the reviews actually matter? I ask because I have so many clients on the customer side, and I guess it applies to employees as well, who say the only people who ever give reviews are the people who are unhappy. So how much weight do reviews actually carry?
CN: I’m going to say that it used to feel like it was just people who were unhappy, but the more people are online, the more often you get people providing reviews, especially because there are now so many ORM-type services that allow you to send out review requests, whether that’s on Glassdoor or wherever. I’ve worked for employers in the past who requested that I leave a review on Glassdoor for the company. So, you’re going to see a lot more of that now, and those reviews are actually going to carry a lot more weight than a lot of businesses are aware of.
A big part of this is that negative perception creates hesitation on the part of employees. They’re not going to want to be there if the perception is negative, because people care about work-life balance, they care about the culture, they care about being in a place where they’re comfortable, and they assume that any patterns reflect reality. So, if they’re seeing those patterns over and over again in reviews, it’s going to affect whether people are comfortable even applying. You’re seeing something like 70 percent of job seekers saying they won’t even fill out an application if they look and decide it’s not the right place for them, just based on other people’s opinions and views of the company.
I think this is where Tanya’s perspective is going to be really interesting, because she knows more about what candidates are looking at when they apply. So, I think this is a good place to chat with Tanya about what she sees from her recruiting perspective.
The Recruiting Perspective
Tanya Brown: Yes, definitely. Well, thank you all for having me, I really appreciate it. From the recruiting perspective, you are absolutely 100 percent correct. People treat jobs the same way they treat restaurants or hotels. If everyone’s saying it’s terrible, then I’m probably not going to go there. So, a candidate will absolutely research before applying, and like you said, they’re not going to apply if everyone is saying negative things about the company.
So, they’re looking at the Glassdoor reviews, they’re looking at Indeed reviews, leadership reputation, and employee LinkedIn activity. You can go to the LinkedIn page of a company now, go to the tab that says “People,” and just see who’s hired. If everyone there has a little tab that says “Open to Work,” there’s a clue right there. They look at social media comments, they’re looking at everything.
And like you stated, they want that work-life balance. People nowadays are taking lower salaries just to have work-life balance, because they don’t want to get into a job that’s stressing them out, that’s keeping them away from their families, that’s just a headache to go to. They want that balance, and their health and mental health are important to them. So instead of going to a job that’s going to pay them $200,000, they may go to a job paying $100,000, just because it has a greater reputation, it has great culture, and they’re going to enjoy going to it each and every day.
GR: So… Tanya, when you’re talking to candidates, how often do you hear about Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, all the reviews about the companies? Is it pretty much every single person? Is it the younger generation? What are you seeing?
TB: I’m seeing it more so… I do hear it, not a lot from the younger generation, but a lot from the mid- to senior-level talent. People going into more management, because they have the experience, they know they can get anything, they’re your A-plus candidates. Some of them are your A-plus candidates, so they’re looking at it. I’ll hear, “I saw concerns about turnover, what do you know about that?” or “Can you tell me about the leadership stability?” Because they don’t know what they’re going into. They may be going into the position to actually change the culture. Is that what this position is for? They just want to know what they’re getting into.
And like you said, they have more options open to them, as opposed to someone who’s just entering the workforce. Those folks have bills to pay, student loans to pay, they’re just trying to get whatever they need. But mid- to senior-level talent, they are definitely in it, and they have the choices. They’re looking for that right place to either grow to the next step or retire from. They want to stay there. They want that longevity.
GR: Okay, so a bad reputation actually impacts whether someone accepts an offer. It’s that important, is what you’re saying?
TB: Absolutely. Absolutely. A great candidate will walk away from offers every day because of reputation concerns. Again, people value their health, they value their mental health. I’ve walked away from interviews saying, “I’m not going to take this job if they offer it to me,” because of the questions I asked, and I found that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. Even though they tried to blow it off, it was like, I don’t want to be in that situation, because I’m putting myself in a bad situation.
And honestly, compensation… some people think, “Well, we’ll just throw money at the problem, we’ll give them a higher salary, we’ll give them better benefits.” Yes, if you are a C-minus company because your reputation is out there and it’s terrible, and you’re looking for an A-plus candidate, that’s hard work and it’s expensive work, and yes, you have to build out your package to woo them over. It might be extra PTO, it may be a higher salary. But even then, compensation doesn’t always overcome a toxic manager.
When you see reviews about micromanagement, burnout, high turnover, or poor leadership, those are all trigger points. And my question is, what are you doing about it? It’s not always that the employee is the problem. When you get that, it’s a lack of accountability on the side of the owner or the leadership, and that’s an issue right there. When you’re not being held accountable and you’re blaming your employees… retention is not an employee problem, retention is a leadership problem. Toxic culture is a leadership problem, it’s not an employee problem. So, when you’re getting feedback from your employees, you need to take that to heart. It’s not always, “Oh, they don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ve been in business for I-don’t-know-how-many years, so I’m not going to listen to them.” It’s valuable feedback that you need to take and actually do something with, whether it’s changing the management or finding out how employees want their environment to be. You need to make those efforts to change that environment in order to improve your reputation.
CN: I love that you said that. I come from another company where it felt like every time I walked in, somebody else was resigning. It’s exhausting for middle management to have to restaff that level, and it’s demoralizing to the team that stays. It’s just bad all the way around.
TB: Exactly. It starts to erode the entire team dynamic, and then it also becomes expensive for the business, which is what I don’t understand, because it takes on average around five to ten thousand dollars to hire a new employee. People just think, “Oh, I’ll put it out there on Indeed, I’ll interview a few people, and then I’ll hire them.” But they don’t take into account the overtime you’re paying other people to make up for that lack of productivity or the vacancy. They don’t think about the amount of time that was lost because of the vacancy. They don’t think about all of those things, and that impacts your bottom line. And like you said, that rolls over into your team. They’re taking on extra work, they’re taking on extra hours, they’re not happy now, and that just starts to erode, and next you have more turnover, more turnover, more turnover, and it becomes much more expensive.
From a recruiting perspective, it becomes even more expensive, because now you’re telling me as a recruiter, “I need one, two, three different people, fill these positions.” And I don’t want to fill these positions and put these people into a business that has a terrible culture. It just doesn’t feel right. My company is CPG, it stands for Careers, People, and Growth. We want to put people into careers, places where it’s either that stepping stone or you’re looking to stay and retire. I’m not looking to put somebody into a frying pan where you just burn them out and then they’re back saying, “I need another job.” That’s not great for that person. I don’t want to come to a company and say, “You’re terrible, I can’t hire for you,” but I also don’t want to put a candidate into a position and say, “This company is horrible, I don’t want you there.” So, it makes it difficult for the recruiter to recruit, and it’s difficult for the company, because they’re not going to get good people, and it’s going to be more and more expensive on both sides.
GR: Yep. I just think about the onboarding time alone, the amount of time and effort it takes to onboard a new employee, only to have them leave six months later because they’re unhappy. It just feels like a treadmill.
TB: It is, and it’s terrible. The onboarding time and the time it takes to train them and bring them up to par… it’s not ideal. So, you need to change what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, and take that feedback into consideration, because it’s important. Listen to your employees, because your employees are the court of public opinion, and that’s better than any type of glowing wordsmithing on your website or your glowing brochures. People will take a stranger’s review and put that as gold, versus your glowing words about your company and what you’re doing. They’ll take the stranger, because the stranger has lived the life as the employee. So, you can talk about how great your culture is, how wonderful it is to be in business, how your employees love it. But if your employees are saying something different, that’s who people are listening to.
GR: Well, Coral’s been with me for 12 years, so I think I might be doing something right.
TB: I think you are 100 percent doing something right.
CN: Sorry, I was just going to say, anytime you see an employee, that conversation…
GR: Coral?
CN: Sorry, I was hearing both of you at the same time, and then my microphone didn’t want to turn on. Can you repeat yourself, please, Gina?
GR: I just said, having been at good companies and bad companies, and I hope, because you’ve been with me for 12 years, you think this is a good company, do you have any questions or comments for Tanya? From an employee’s perspective, it’s an interesting pivot from how I think about it.
CN: Yeah, for sure. I’ve been part of companies at times that have these Glassdoor reviews and things that I know the employer doesn’t necessarily feel are fair. But then you go in and look at it from the perspective of, okay, I’ve been an employee, I’ve had feet on the ground, and I can vouch for the fact that what other people are saying is true. It’s a tough place to be in a company too, especially in middle management, because I pretty much always worked somewhere in middle management, where I’m consistently hiring, consistently trying to keep a team together, and working for a team where you’re seeing that employee feedback that’s consistently, “Middle management’s doing great, but at the top it’s not good.” Nobody wants to work in an environment like that.
So it’s one of those things where, yeah, I’ve definitely seen it play out. And I’ll tell you that after having that experience in one of the companies I worked for, I’m very careful now. I’m not going anywhere, I’m very happy where I’m at now, obviously things are going well, it’s been 12 years. But in the past, I’ve found that I spend a lot more time on Glassdoor and on Indeed and looking at that kind of thing, because I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’m going to be in a culture that doesn’t fit me, or I’m going to be miserable working there. Having experienced that, it’s rough.
So I think it’s very important to make sure you’re managing this and figuring out how to attract those A-plus candidates by making sure you have the information out there that you need. So, all that being said, what are the top things that people are looking for in those reviews, the positive pieces? If employers are asking people to rate them on Glassdoor or Indeed, what are the things employees are primarily looking for in those reviews?
TB: You’re saying, what are employers looking for when they’re asking their employees to write reviews for them?
CN: When people are looking at companies and trying to decide whether they want to be there, what are the top three things they’re looking for, so that when you have employees writing reviews for their employers, they have a good idea of what to mention if those things are true? Of course, we want to make sure these are accurate. But what are the top three things you see people looking for when they read these reviews?
TB: Management, management, management, management. And you’re correct, management is difficult. I actually did a webinar a couple of weeks ago on the leadership pipeline and how managers are put into positions because they’re high performers, but they’re not necessarily trained to actually lead, and there’s a gap there. It’s not necessarily their fault. Anybody will take a promotion into management, but it’s the fault of the owner or the directors to train these people how to lead these teams and how to create that culture.
But to answer your question: management quality, work-life balance, and growth opportunities. People want to advance. They don’t want to just get there, hit that ceiling, and then have to leave. And they’re looking for the culture. Culture is so important. They want a healthy culture where they enjoy coming to work every day. So I’d say those are the main things.
As far as stability, I think it’s great that you’ve worked there for 12 years, that’s awesome. It speaks volumes for you, Gina—
GR: Thank you.
TB: —that you have a great atmosphere there and a great work culture. Anytime you see longevity, that’s a great thing. Back in the day it was, “Oh, you jumped from this job, you only worked at this job for three years, you only worked at that job for four years,” and people saw that as a negative. Today it’s actually seen more positively in some avenues, just because it shows that, especially if you moved up throughout, you moved with purpose and with the goal of gaining more experience. If that shows on your resume, it reflects positively on you. But I’d have to say yes: management, work-life balance, growth opportunities, and culture.
“Is It a You Problem?” Why Some Businesses Fear Reviews
GR: Okay, that makes sense. So, from the employee-employer perspective, ORM is significant. But I want to talk a little bit about the broader brush stroke here, if we may. When I’m talking to prospects, oftentimes I hear, “I don’t want to be on social media, because I don’t want people talking badly,” or “I don’t want to have a Yelp platform, because I don’t want people giving me bad reviews.” And I find it so curious. If you’re that worried about it, is that an internal problem? Is that a you problem, or is that a reviewing problem? I think it comes from an internal thing, where if you’re that worried about what people are going to say about you negatively, what are you doing to earn that reputation? Does that resonate?
TB: Indeed, I would think the exact same thing. I was one of those people, though, who didn’t want to start on social media. Once I did, I was glad I got into it. But my concern was more about trolls coming on board and hitting you up and saying negative things, just because they’re nasty people themselves. That was my concern. But as far as an employer, I’d agree with you: what are you hiding? I think people, because social does have that negative side, kind of overlook the positives and the benefits that it provides. Even if someone did say something negative, you have a tribe of people, if you were doing really well and your company had that great reputation and your employees were happy, if there was one person who said something negative, that tribe of people who support you will come in and say, “No, it’s not like that, this is wrong.” So, you always have that support if you have that tribe and that great reputation with your employees. But I’d have to agree with you: what are you hiding, and what’s wrong with it?
Using Feedback Constructively and Responding Well
GR: How do you go about encouraging them to get on?
CN: Right, yeah. I think it’s important for businesses to use feedback constructively. An average company will look at those reviews and say the person reviewing, whether it’s an employee or a consumer, was just a problem. But I think it’s important to look at what that feedback is, and how you can make changes to make this a better place to work, a better place to do business. I think that really separates average companies from really good companies.
GR: And look at what good companies do when they get negative reviews. We’ve got clients whose ORM we manage, and when they get a bad review, it’s like somebody told them their kid was ugly. They take it really personally and want to fix it, do something about it. Then I’ve got other people who just get angry and want to respond back nasty. So, what does a good public response look like? Part of this is that you use that review, whether it’s good or bad, to keep doing more of what you’re doing well, and to figure out how to change what you may not be doing as well. Coral, you’re front line with these reviews and with the clients. Do you have some thoughts?
CN: Yeah. I think a good response typically looks like acknowledgement of the issue, if it is actually an issue. Acknowledging that somebody is upset first, and then not discussing anything sensitive online in that response. Instead, you acknowledge that the person is upset. You say, “We hear you, we understand your frustrations, let’s see if we can have a conversation and figure out what this looks like.” So, you want to respond, you want to acknowledge, and you want to make sure you’re offering a resolution, because sometimes what that looks like is the person taking the review down or editing the review. But you always want to offer that opportunity for a resolution offline, and you always want to respond.
People aren’t necessarily looking for perfection, but they are looking for a company’s responsiveness, and they are looking for a company to be authentic. Authenticity is the number one thing across the board when we’re looking at anything online right now, especially with the rise of AI, because people want to know there’s a person behind there. They want to know that somebody is actually seeing these, answering these, and making changes. And then, if it does turn out to be something that’s not unfounded, if it turns out to be an issue, you need to look internally and figure out where that’s coming from. That’s kind of what I see on my end. Tanya, did you have any feedback there too?
TB: No, I agree 100 percent. A response is something I even look for, and just as we stated with restaurant reviews, it’s like, well, how did someone respond back to it? Did they respond, and then how did they respond? Did they respond back negatively? Were they combative? It makes a difference how you respond. I had one other point, but I just lost it, I apologize.
GR: That’s all right, we’ve got plenty of time, you can come back to it. It’s interesting, I get clients who just want to get super defensive. They want to fire back, they want to get in a fight, essentially. I remember years ago there was a bakery in Scottsdale, Arizona, my in-laws live there, and they literally just railed on people who gave them negative reviews. Within days, their business had blown up and they closed their doors, because they didn’t respond properly. I always tell my clients, if you get a bad review, stop, breathe, get up, and walk around for a minute, and then pick up the phone and call me, because I’m not emotionally invested the way that people are in their companies. Like I said, it’s like saying your kid’s ugly, or kicking your dog. People get really upset.
What to Monitor, and How Often
GR: So, as we talk about ORM in general, on both sides of the coin, both from the customer and the employee perspective, what are we monitoring? How often are we monitoring it? What are we looking for? Are we seeing patterns? Let’s start there, but then I want to go in a little bit of a different direction shortly.
I also want to point out, if you all have any questions at all, please feel free to pop in and ask them while we’re at this, because I know this is a sensitive area for a lot of people, and this is an open forum to ask some of those tough questions. So please feel free to do that.
CN: The places businesses really need to be regularly monitoring, for ORM specifically but a lot for employee ORM, are going to be Indeed, Glassdoor, Yelp, Google reviews, and then social media is also a really good spot. I recommend using a platform that allows you to see all of your mentions on social media. We use a platform called HeyOrca, like the whale. I love HeyOrca. They’re great for scheduling social media posts, but they’re also a spot where we can see any mention that comes through for any of our clients and for ourselves, so that we’re able to easily monitor that. I love being able to see that in one spot on social channels.
And then the other thing is making sure you’re seeing those at least, as Gina pointed out, you want to be Googling yourself at least once a week. There are also other platforms that allow you to see and connect to all of your review sites. You want to have a profile on all of your review sites, because those are going to pop up no matter what. Google is going to create them, Yahoo is going to create them, Bing is going to create them. You’re going to be everywhere across the board whether you want to be or not. So, the first thing you want to do is make sure you’re claiming those employer profiles, so that you’re able to go in there and respond to those reviews in a professional manner from a professional account. Then you want to connect those to a platform that allows you to get all the reviews in one spot and notify you immediately. So, if a review comes through, it comes to your email, you see it, you check it out, and you respond to it within 24 hours. As Gina mentioned, if it’s a negative review, take a beat, take a breath, call someone else who can help you, but make sure you’re responding within 24 hours or so.
Google reviews are always going to be top of the list, but once you move down to Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, and everywhere else, you want to take a look at those too, and make sure you’re consistently monitoring them.
“Don’t Click the Link” (and Why)
GR: So I’m going to jump deeply into geek speak here, and I apologize if I lose anyone, but this is critical. (Sorry, my dog has decided to join us on the webinar today, he’s right here.)
When you Google yourself and all of those review platforms come up, particularly with the negative reviews, if you’ve got a two-star or three-star, whatever, please do not click on that link in the search engine results page. Every time you click a link like that, you are signaling to Google that it’s a good link, and what that’s going to do is ensure that link stays at the top of the search engine results page.
One caveat: all of that is subject to change based on the rollout Google made yesterday on how their search engine results pages are going to look. But in the current environment, the more signal you give Google that something is a good answer, the more often it’s going to show up. So, if you do have a negative review and you want to see what it says and you want to respond to it, log into the platform. Don’t click the link. Does that make sense?
I realize that’s going down an SEO rabbit hole, but the reality is that online reputation management directly impacts search engine optimization and where you appear in search. So don’t click the link. Please don’t click the link. Please, please, please, don’t click the link.
CN: If you take anything from this today, take away Gina’s “don’t click the link.”
Claiming Your Profiles; The Trouble with Yelp
GR: The other thing I’ll say is, I agree with Coral 100 percent. If you’ve got a profile out there, claim it, for several reasons. Number one, it’s already out there, so you might as well manage the narrative. Number two, if you don’t claim it, you’re not going to get reports back on what’s going on there if people are reviewing you. And number three, your competitors can claim it, and you don’t want somebody else defensively owning your profiles.
So when you get approached by Clutch, or you get approached by whoever, go ahead and claim and complete that profile to the best of your ability, ensuring that the name, address, and phone number on that profile match all the other names, addresses, and phone numbers on all the other profiles and your website. The consistency of name, address, and phone number across platforms is another ranking signal when it comes to Google, and when it comes to ORM or SEO, all the initials, all the acronyms.
The one that scares me is Yelp, for a variety of reasons. I could do an entire webinar on Yelp, but I won’t give them that forum here. If there is not a Yelp profile out there, I personally would not fill it out. There are just too many things about Yelp that frighten me to encourage a client to set up a profile on Yelp. If they already set one up, you’ve got to go claim it. But if you’re not seeing one out there, I’m not poking that bear. Does that make sense? Yeah, we can talk more about Yelp another time, but I’m not doing it.
TB: Could I add just one little thing? I’m on Indeed and I’m on Glassdoor and I see those things all the time, but what I don’t see are responses. So, I think people are more geared toward Google and, I don’t even want to mention Yelp now, but possibly geared more toward the Google reviews. Their reviews are sometimes sour on those platforms, so they can respond to those employee comments, and they should.
GR: Yep. That was actually my next question for Coral, about how to handle responses there. [A portion of the recording here is unintelligible.] You can ask for reviews on your profile, but people have to know that it’s there, and they have to know to go look for it.
Yelp will filter a review if they suspect that you’ve asked for it. They don’t have to have proof positive. If they suspect you’ve asked for reviews, they can and will filter those reviews. So that’s one of the reasons I steer clients away from Yelp, because oftentimes it’s just a negative representation of their business that’s controlled by Yelp, not controlled organically like Google or some of the other platforms.
TB: Wow.
GR: Does that make sense? If you look in your profile, I haven’t looked in a long time, but in the bottom left-hand corner there’s a little tiny line that says “filtered reviews.” When you click it open, it opens a whole bunch of reviews that are not part of your overall rating on Yelp.
TB: Wow.
Respond to Everything, Positive or Negative
GR: And to your point, answering every review as soon as it comes in, from every platform. Coral can speak to this better. Whether it’s a positive review or a negative review, we tell our clients, get on there and thank them. Coral, you could talk a little bit more about this than I can, because you’re dealing with these reviews more often.
CN: Yeah. It’s important to get in there and to say thank you and to acknowledge every review. Gina does a great job of this on our reviews. She makes sure that anytime we have a review come in, whether it’s positive or negative, it’s always responded to within 24 hours. That way people know that we’re here, we’re responsive, we’re reaching out, we’re answering questions, we’re making sure our clients know we’re available. I think that’s critical, and it’s critical for prospects too. When they look you up and see, “Oh, they are responding to reviews,” they see what’s going on out there. You want to make sure people know you’re seeing what they’re saying, you’re seeing the chatter online about your company, and that you’re responding appropriately.
So, I think those are the two most important things: always see it, and respond. People want to see that you’re there, that you care, that you’re doing something. And it’s also important, as Tanya talked about, to do something about it too. You want to look internally, take some time to figure out what’s going on within your company that might be causing these issues to begin with, and see if there’s a way you can fix it. Then maybe at that point, you start a campaign to get more Glassdoor reviews from people who are happy within your company. You want that authenticity, because otherwise your turnover is going to be really heavy.
Like I mentioned, I’ve worked for companies before that encouraged Glassdoor reviews, but they had to be positive Glassdoor reviews. The company I worked for at the time was not one I’d typically want to leave a positive Glassdoor review for. However, because we kind of were pushed into it, a lot of us did it. And then you look on the back end, and people come in based on those positive Glassdoor reviews, and within three months they recognize the reviews were absolute crap, and they’re gone. You get turnover. So, it’s important that if you’re encouraging your employees to review on Glassdoor, you want their authentic responses, and you want to make sure you’re setting your company up in a way that’s going to give you authentic responses that are positive. I think that’s critical there.
GR: Yeah, and I would also say, you want to be honest. You want your people to be honest. If you are asking for reviews, don’t compensate people for good reviews, and don’t threaten people if they leave a bad review. Check your platform. We use a tool called NiceJob that allows us to solicit reviews from platforms that allow the solicitation of reviews. As I said, you can’t ask for reviews on Yelp, those reviews will be filtered. But we use a platform that only uses the allowable platforms. (Sorry, I’ve said “platform” 27 times, I apologize, not enough caffeine today.) So, you can go out and get those reviews from the people you think are going to be natural brand advocates.
Why Reviews Matter for SEO and AI
GR: We work on campaigns all the time, and as a segue into our last segment, those reviews are critical for your SEO. They’re also important for your AIO, your AI optimization. So, let’s talk a little bit about why these reviews are so important in search engine optimization, but also in AI. Why is AI leaning so heavily on reviews when it comes to placements in AI search? Coral, this is all you.
CN: Yeah. This is where we get out of the business development piece and into a little bit more of, how do you make it work for you online? Everybody’s online, everybody’s using AI right now, it’s becoming more and more prevalent in everyday work than ever before. You want to make sure that the information AI is being fed is information you want it to be fed.
So, the first thing you want to do is make sure your website reflects the work that you do and your culture. You want to put a culture statement out there. The only online platform whose content you 100 percent control is your website. So, you start there, because that’s where AI is going to start pulling from, and it also gives you a place where you control the narrative 100 percent. It’s rare to find that anymore. So, start with your website. Talk about your culture, your mission, your vision, but make sure it aligns with what other people are saying, and make sure your business values align with it internally, so that when people see it, it’s accurate.
The other places AI is going to pull from are LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all of those different social platforms, as well as the review platforms. It’s going to use all of that to put together an employee reputation signal. It’s going to show a user exactly what’s out there across the web on all the different platforms. So, it will show the negatives and it will show the positives.
A lot of people who are fluent in AI right now will ask it to show the pros and cons of working at a company. So, what it’s going to pull up is, “Here are the top three things people say positively about the company, here are the bottom three things people say negatively about the company,” and then it’s going to have the sources there. So, you want to make sure you’re looking across all of those places, because it’s going to pull all of that into AI and people are going to look for it.
You’ve got people who’ll look for pros and cons. You have other people who are just going to go in and say, “What’s it like to work at XYZ company? Should I work at XYZ company? What is this company’s reputation?” There’s no real way to drill down on exactly what people are asking in AI, especially because it’s so conversational compared to traditional search. But it does give you an opportunity to at least make sure you have all that information out across the different platforms, so you have as many places as possible to pull positively from into AI. Does that answer the question?
GR: Yeah, I think that’s accurate. The other thing I want to comment on is, because AI is so deep, it’s going to search other things you didn’t think it was going to search. So be really careful on your social media. If you’re an officer of the company, if you’re named on the company website as an employee, it’s going to source that.
One of the biggest resources for AI learning is Reddit. If you’re on Reddit with a name that can be tied to you, and most people mask their names, I get it, but whatever, some people are not smart and they put their real name out there, and then they go post some crazy political rant, or that they were taken up by space aliens and teleported, or whatever, that’s going to be pulled back to the information AI can source about your company. So please, please, please, be sure that if you’re tied personally to your company, you’re not doing anything out there in the world, because that gets sourced and it doesn’t go away.
If you’re an employee and you’ve got “Open to Work” on and you’re still at Pink Dog Digital, that may surface when I do that Google search or that AI search, and I’m going to find out that you’re trying to find a job. So be real careful in your personal environment.
Q&A: Non-Disparagement Clauses
GR: We don’t have a lot of time left, so I want to offer the opportunity. Do we have any questions in the room? Okay. I have a question for Tanya. What are your thoughts, and I don’t even know what’s legal or not legal, I know a lot of employers require non-disparagement clauses in their employment agreements and contractor agreements. What are your thoughts about that?
TB: I disagree with it, and this is a personal opinion, because again, it seems like you’re hiding something. I can understand if it’s a non-disclosure, something that’s confidential and top secret, that’s totally different. But I’ve had a couple of companies come to me, smaller businesses, and they were asking me, “What do you do? How can I stop an employee from speaking badly about my company?” And I told them, you need to go speak with a marketer, you need to go speak with a lawyer about that, because that’s not my forte. But then the question arises, why are they speaking badly about the company? Again, to your point, it’s about responding. If they’re releasing confidential information, that’s a totally different thing. But personally, I don’t agree with it, because I think you’re trying to silence people, and again, you’re trying to hide something. That’s totally different from confidential information. Just based off of, “I don’t want you saying anything bad about the company, you can’t speak on your social media about this company,” that’s something totally different, because I think you’re trying to silence them, and that’s their platform. They can speak about whatever they want, as long as they’re not defaming you. If they’re talking about their personal experience of what they’ve gone through at your company, that’s something totally different. If they’re just putting you on blast and saying negative things and slandering you, that’s something different, and there are avenues to handle that.
Q&A: Bad Reviews from Bots and Disgruntled Ex-Employees
GR: That’s interesting. That was my next question for Coral. And then we’re going to be close to wrapping up. Coral, what happens when I get a bad review from somebody I’ve never done business with, or it’s a bot, or it’s a disgruntled employee I’ve fired for just cause and they’re just angry? What do I do?
CN: All right. So, the bots and the ones that are not real, you report them immediately. That’s the first thing you want to do. You report them to Google, and then you respond, very matter-of-fact, but not in any way combative or rude. “This is clear that this review is not somebody we’ve done business with before. If you have any questions, please reach out to us,” and then provide a way to reach out. That is critical on those responses.
Where it is a disgruntled employee or ex-employee who’s been fired, for those responses you want to be very, very careful, but you also want to respond. Reporting it will not work unless the person is using profanity or directly targeting somebody within the company and saying things about them that are completely false. If that happens, then yes, you absolutely want to report the review immediately, but you also want to respond to it, in a way that, like we talked about earlier, acknowledges that the person is upset. Mention that it’s a conversation that needs to be had offline, and then wrap it up calmly. You don’t want to put too much information out there, but you want to make it clear that it’s a conversation that needs to be had internally, and go from there.
It’s tough with a disgruntled ex-employee, somebody who’s been fired, because you’re going to run into issues there every single time. But you want to make sure you’re replying calmly. Take a beat, and make sure you’re replying honestly without giving too much information away. So, it’s, and I hate to say this, but it is a case-by-case basis. It’s a matter of being very cautious about what you say and how you put it out there, and working with somebody to workshop it with you to make sure it’s clean and as positive as it can be under the situation.
GR: Yeah, and I think in the case of the employee, it’s helpful to consult either your attorney or your HR professional, because you don’t want to wind up, on top of the bad review, getting sued for saying something you’re not supposed to say in a public forum.
CN: Correct. Yep. It’s always good to consult with a professional in those situations, to make sure you’re not causing any further issues.
GR: I also want to point out, and I get this email probably once a month: “Can we take this review down?” No, we cannot. We have no ability to take a review down. We can’t force a platform to take a review down. At best, we can report a review and hope that the platform does the right thing. Is that always going to happen? No. We have a client who had a customer dox one of his employees, and we reported it to Google for six months. They never took it down. This poor woman’s information, first name, last name, office, is out there in the public domain, and she did nothing wrong. We can’t do anything about it. So, at some point you need to respond appropriately and walk away, because it’s not coming down.
Closing Thoughts
GR: So, in the final three minutes, Coral, Tanya, do you have any parting words for the group?
CN: Yeah. I’m going to say, if you do one thing after today, if there’s one key takeaway from this, other than Gina’s “don’t press the link,” make sure you go out and look at your company like a stranger would. Search yourself, search your company, read the reviews, read employee reviews, see what other people are experiencing and saying, so that you can appropriately respond and also appropriately make any changes within your company that need to be made. Your reputation isn’t just what you say about your business. It’s what other people say about your business, especially when you’re not in the room. So if you can get yourself into the room by checking all of your different platforms, get yourself into the rooms that you can be part of the conversation, and check it in regular search as well as AI search, because you may wind up with very different results.
GR: Correct. Yep. Tanya, final words, and a shameless plug for your business.
TB: I agree 100 percent. Please take those reviews seriously, because they can make a difference in the type and quality of candidates that are applying and that you’ll receive. It can be a lot more expensive having a candidate that’s bringing your business down than it is to just work on the company culture, or work on whatever the problem is, respond to those reviews, make it a friendly atmosphere, and make it a place where people want to work. And if you need help with that, my shameless plug: CPG recruitment. We work with businesses to help keep them fully staffed. If you need help with interview questions, or just hiring, or just need advice on how to do proper hiring, please feel free to reach out.
GR: Awesome. We will be doing a recording and sending this out to everyone, so if you missed any of it, you’ll be able to get caught up again. We are Pink Dog Digital. We’re here to help you with all of your digital marketing needs, including online reputation management, both from a consumer and an employee perspective. Feel free to give us a call for a free consultation at any time, and we’ll look forward to being here same time, same station next month. I think our topic is on AI. Coral?
CN: Actually, I know we talked about doing AI, but after Google’s most recent I/O presentation, AI will be a part of it. We need to get in there and talk a little bit about how they’re changing search, because they are changing search pretty significantly in the upcoming months, and it’s something I think we all need to get ahead of. So it will be on Google I/O, as well as discussing AI and how it’s going to affect that.
GR: Awesome. I look forward to it. Thank you all for attending, and we’ll see you next month. Take care.
