A PR disaster - some lessons to learn

There's probably no way that this Range Rover dealership could have predicted that their customer's story would make the national press...

...but they could have done much more to make sure that it wasn't reinforced by the image that they have allowed their other dissatisfied customers to create online:

Whether it is ignorance or just plain laziness (or maybe even review denial), there's no excuse for allowing your dissatisfied customers to dominate your online reputation in 2017. 

At this point some of you will be thinking 'Maybe this business is just rubbish at customer service'. And you may be right - we don't know the business from Adam. But we do know that Range Rover have very strict customer service guidelines for their dealerships in place - and a product that Clarkson & co have consistently rated very highly, so is likely that they have simply fallen down on their review management.

What should they have done?

They should have adopted a professional review management strategy and engaged with their customers. They currently have eleven reviews on Google - a business like theirs should have a nought added to that figure by 2017, and look a lot more like this:

 
  ...a great score, great reviews and a headline number that cannot be argued with


The effect?

Would be...

•  reassurance

...for their existing customers who read the article and then checked them out online and for prospective customers when this article is returned in search for the future.

Review management - it is all about protecting, and projecting, your hard-won reputation.